Private Investigator Smokey Dalton works for Memphis, Tennessee’s black community. He has almost no interaction with the white hierarchy, even though they exist only blocks away. So he’s surprised the day a white woman walks into his Beale Street office. Laura Hathaway has sought him out because he’s a beneficiary in her mother’s will, and Laura wants to know why. So does Smokey. He’s never heard of the Hathaways, but his search will take him on a journey that will change everything he’s ever known. Set against the backdrop of the strike and protests that will end with Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination, A Dangerous Road combines the politics of race, betrayal, unexpected love, and the terrible cost of trust into a story so memorable the Mystery Writers of America chose it as one of the top five novels of the year and the Historical Mystery Appreciation Society honored it as the winner of the Herodotus Award for Best Historical Mystery. “More than just offering a puzzle, this novel encourages self-examination about identity, responsibility and the consequences of choices. Smokey proves himself a man of conscience able to make tough choices.” — Publisher’s Weekly “Nelscott’s series setting, in the turbulent late ’60s, gives her books layers of issues of racism, class, and war, all of which still seem to remain sadly timely today.” —Oregonian “It’s not hard to draw parallels between Nelscott’s PI Smokey Dalton and Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins, another secretive, canny black man trying to solve mysteries while circumspectly navigating the white world. But Dalton’s no knock-off. (Would you label the hundreds of hard-boiled detectives who’ve appeared in Raymond Chandler’s wake mere Marlow Xeroxes because they’re white?) —Entertainment Weekly Kris Nelscott is an open pen name used by USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch. The first Smokey Dalton novel, A Dangerous Road, won the Herodotus Award for Best Historical Mystery and was short-listed for the Edgar Award for Best Novel; the second, Smoke-Filled Rooms, was a PNBA Book Award finalist; and the third, Thin Walls, was one of the Chicago Tribune’s best mysteries of the year. Kirkus chose Days of Rage as one of the top ten mysteries of the year and it was also nominated for a Shamus award for The Best Private Eye Hardcover Novel of the Year. Entertainment Weekly says her equals are Walter Mosley and Raymond Chandler. Booklist calls the Smokey Dalton books “a high-class crime series” and Salon says “Kris Nelscott can lay claim to the strongest series of detective novels now being written by an American author.” Smokey Dalton’s story will continue at long last in March 2014 with Street Justice, the seventh novel in the series. For more information about Kris Nelscott, or author Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s other works, please go to KristineKathrynRusch.com.

It's a long hot summer in 1968. After escaping Memphis with Jimmy, a ten-year-old boy who witnessed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., P.I. Smokey Dalton hopes to start a new life in Chicago. Their new beginning is shattered by the event leading up to the Democratic National Convention, where violence and paranoia have replaced political protest. Smokey does all he can to protect Jimmy from the police and his nagging fear that a rogue FBI agent is following them. But when a neighborhood boy disappears, and the body of another is found tortured on his doorstep, Smokey knows that he cannot run any longer. Only by dividing headlong into the underside of the 1960s can he and Jimmy hope to stay alive...

"I hear you help people find things." So begins the latest case for Smokey Dalton, Kris Nelscott's enigmatic African-American p.i. But when Mrs. Alice Foster comes to the door of his small apartment, she's not missing a pet, or even a loved She wants Smokey to find her husband's killer. Three weeks ago, Louis Foster was found propped up against a tree in a city park, stabbed once through the heart. The cops have given up, and Smokey isn't It's 1968, and the Chicago PD cops who responded to the scene have clearly written off the death of this black man as a mugging gone wrong, or something equally unimportant. Case closed. Not for Smokey. He starts at the beginning, enlisting the reluctant help of a photojournalist who took pictures at the scene. Then, going back through newspaper archives, looking for patterns, clues, wild theories-anything that will help him figure out why a middle-class black man would be found dead in a public park miles from home-Smokey learns something startling. Louis Foster doesn't look to be the first. Amid trying to protect his adopted ten-year-old son, who's being hassled at school by some older gang members, Smokey, the photojournalist, and two renegade cops who risk their careers to help him, set off on the hunt for a killer. Nelscott's Edgar Award-nominated A Dangerous Road, which introduced Smokey Dalton and told the story of the days leading up to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination in Memphis, launched an atmospheric crime series set during one of the most turbulent times of our recent past. Now, in this third installment, she delivers a gripping thriller about one man struggling to build a life in this divided city the only way he knows how, and the men who would kill to stop him.

It's Christmastime, 1969, in Chicago. After a night out, Smokey Dalton, Kris Nelscott's enigmatic African-American P.I., and his girlfriend find a young woman bleeding to death in his neighbor's apartment. Upon arriving with her at the hospital, they discover that her injuries are due to a botched illegal abortion. This act of charity blooms into a more complicated situation when Smokey learns that the woman became pregnant after being raped. The woman survives, but the fallout is deadly: Her ex-husband vows revenge at any cost. And in a city torn apart by racial strife, gang wars, and a burgeoning drug problem, Smokey believes that cost could be too high. Kris Nelscott, one of the most nuanced, intelligent writers of crime fiction working today, has authored another heart-stopping, complicated novel of a country ripped apart at the seams and a lone man doing all he can to put things right.

It's summertime in 1969 when African-American P.I. Smokey Dalton heads east to look for a missing college student. Daniel Kirkland never showed up for his spring semester at Yale and seems to have disappeared without a trace. The search for Daniel takes Smokey from the hallowed halls of the nation's wealthiest university to the poorest slums on the outskirts of New Haven. The harder he searches, the more he learns about the dark side of the antiwar movement, in which the idealistic young Daniel may have become involved. And he keeps hearing rumors about bombs. When the trail finally leads Smokey to New York City, he discovers that someone might be trying to kill Daniel. Rumors become more concrete, and Smokey knows it's only a matter of time before a bomb goes off. Because Smokey, a Korean War veteran, recognizes the pattern: he has stumbled into a war. A war at home. In this blistering new book, award-winner Kris Nelscott continues her hard-hitting look at the turbulence of the late sixties and early seventies, all in the guise of the modern crime novel.

Chicago, 1969: The trial of eight protestors from the Democratic Convention the previous year has the whole world watching—and all of Chicagoland on edge. Smokey Dalton feels the pressure: more cops on the streets, more FBI in his neighborhood. But when the landlord at one of Sturdy Investments’ South Side properties dies alone in his apartment, Smokey agrees to investigate He finds old human bones in the basement, along with hints of more. Smokey and his girlfriend, Sturdy’s CEO Laura Hathaway, worry that Laura’s father knew who used that basement and why. Without involving law enforcement, they decide to hold a thorough investigation and discover secrets they never ever imagined, secrets that could threaten Smokey, Laura, Sturdy, and one of Chicago’s greatest institutions. Secrets worth killing for. “When Kris Nelscott started her impressive series about Smokey Dalton…, many critics and readers wondered how long she could keep up the pace. Days of Rage, her sixth book in the Dalton series, indicates there seems to be no end in sight.” —Chicago Tribune Kris Nelscott is an open pen name used by USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch. The first Smokey Dalton novel, A Dangerous Road, won the Herodotus Award for Best Historical Mystery and was short-listed for the Edgar Award for Best Novel; the second, Smoke-Filled Rooms, was a PNBA Book Award finalist; and the third, Thin Walls, was one of the Chicago Tribune’s best mysteries of the year. Kirkus chose Days of Rage as one of the top ten mysteries of the year and it was also nominated for a Shamus award for The Best Private Eye Hardcover Novel of the Year. Entertainment Weekly says her equals are Walter Mosley and Raymond Chandler. Booklist calls the Smokey Dalton books “a high-class crime series” and Salon says “Kris Nelscott can lay claim to the strongest series of detective novels now being written by an American author.” For more information about Kris Nelscott, or author Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s other works, please go to KrisNelscott.com or KristineKathrynRusch.com.

In the first week of the new decade, an emergency phone call shatters Chicago Private Detective Smokey Dalton’s hopes for a good 1970. His adopted son Jimmy and Jimmy’s best friend and cousin Keith Grimshaw need help. Smokey arrives at a South Side hotel across from the boys’ school in time to clean up a horrible mess, one the boys mostly solve on their own. But the boys’ heroic actions echo across all of Chicago. Smokey finds himself standing alone against street gangs, the mob, and the Democratic Machine. If he fights this battle and fails, he stands to lose not only Jimmy and their future together, but also his life. “Easy comparisons can be made to Dave Robicheaux, Spenser, and Easy Rawlins, but Smokey is his own man. Women want to be near him and cook his dinner as he settles his nerves with three fingers of Scotch. A great read for fans of detectives guarding an inner city’s grimy streets.” —Library Journal “Dalton’s hard won small victory vividly illustrates a turbulent period of our recent cultural history.” —Publisher’s Weekly “... a gripping read that drags us deeper into [Smokey] Dalton’s uneasy world.” —Entertainment Weekly on War at Home Acclaim for the Smokey Dalton Series • Edgar Award nomination • Shamus nomination for Best Private Eye Hardcover Novel • Winner of two Spotted Owl Awards for Best Mystery by a Northwest Writer • Oregon Book Award Nomination Kris Nelscott is an open pen name used by USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch. The first Smokey Dalton novel, A Dangerous Road, won the Herodotus Award for Best Historical Mystery and was short-listed for the Edgar Award for Best Novel; the second, Smoke-Filled Rooms, was a PNBA Book Award finalist; and the third, Thin Walls, was one of the Chicago Tribune’s best mysteries of the year. Kirkus chose Days of Rage as one of the top ten mysteries of the year and it was also nominated for a Shamus award for The Best Private Eye Hardcover Novel of the Year. Entertainment Weekly says her equals are Walter Mosley and Raymond Chandler. Booklist calls the Smokey Dalton books “a high-class crime series” and Salon says “Kris Nelscott can lay claim to the strongest series of detective novels now being written by an American author.” For more information about Kris Nelscott, or author Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s other works, please go to KrisNelscott.com or KristineKathrynRusch.com.