A Smile on the Face of the Tiger (Amos Walker)

"I never thought I'd see her again. But never is longer than forever." She is book editor, Louise Starr, a beautiful and scheming ghost from Amos Walker's past; and she wants the Detroit private eye to find Eugene Booth, a missing paperback writer from the 1950s and ask him why he turned down his first book contract in 40 years. Eugene Booth's trail leads to a rustic motel cabin, where the crusty old pro is hammering out his first novel in decades on a battered Smith Corona with a case of bourbon for inspiration. But when the writer winds up hanging from his own belt, Walker must discover the connection between the apparent suicide, the murder of Booth's wife 40 years before - and a deadly secret as old as World War II.

Winner of three Shamus Awards for his Amos Walker novels, four Golden Spur Awards for Western fiction, three Western Heritage Awards, and many other awards for his other fiction, Loren D. Estleman has also been nominated for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Poison Blonde (2003) was his fifty-first novel. He and his wife, author Deborah Morgan, live outside Detroit, Michigan.