Monday Mystery Backlist - CLOSE CASE

Well, I made it to two consecutive weeks! We're on a roll with this backlist post! Last week I started out with a male crime fiction writer. So, this week, we're going to give the female writers some face time.

This week's backlist title is CLOSE CASE by Alafair Burke. CLOSE CASE is the third book in Burke's Samantha Kincaid series. Samantha is a Deputy District Attorney in Portland, Oregon. And when she begins to investigate the murder of a star reporter she finds that it may have connections to a police shooting from the previous week. The police shooting caused a huge community stir - an unarmed mother was shot and killed - and at first the reporter's shooting appears to be committed by two individuals who were reacting to that stir. But as it turns out, it simply can't be that straightforward. Samantha's investigating doesn't make her the most popular gal with the police department when she begins to find connections between the city's drug trade and the police precinct, which is a double whammy considering that's exactly where her boyfriend Chuck works. Suspense, politics, controversy. Burke doing what she does best.

CLOSE CASE was published in hardcover by Henry Holt in 2005 and by St. Martin's Paperbacks in 2006.



**a couple of reminders to start out the week. First: don't forget to register for your chance to win a copy of Michael Stanley's A CARRION DEATH. That contest runs through Sunday, so make sure you get your entry in. Details can be found here.

And for those of you in the Cleveland area, Rosemary Harris is at Barnes and Noble at Westlake's Crocker Park TONIGHT at 7p.m. Hope you'll join us and welcome Rosemary! Hope to see you there.