Guarding Lacey — Kris Nelscott

Private detective Smokey Dalton does his best to protect his adopted family, from his 11-year-old son Jimmy to his friends, the Grimshaws. But Smokey can't see everything. Jimmy notices that Lacey Grimshaw -- “thirteen going on trouble,” Smokey says -- skips school to hang out with an adult man. Jimmy doesn't want to tattle, but he's worried about Lacey. So he pretends he's Smokey, and follows her, learning secrets that will change him -- and Lacey -- forever.


“Excellent…Kris Nelscott's first short case for Smokey Dalton requires him to be as sensitive and brave as her novels (do).”
-- Kirkus

“(A) crime writer deliberately taking chances.”
-- Chicago Tribune

“Kris Nelscott has created an intriguing character in Smokey Dalton, a tough-guy black private eye based in Chicago.”
-- Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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.