Kill Your Darlings

Mallory is back and facing a two-fisted whodunit: Who’s responsible for the just-discovered “lost novel” by the celebrated author of The Maltese Falcon? Is it the master, Dashiell Hammett, himself, or a very cunning counterfeiter? And who’s behind the shocking, suspicious demise of Roscoe Kane, a hard-drinking, hard-boiled crime-novel pioneer? Aptly enough, this one-two punch of a puzzle is the talk of Bouchercon, the famed convention where mystery scribes gather to honor (and murder?) their own. But Mallory may be the only one who’s tired of talking. He’s got a heavy-duty hunch, a hotel full of suspects, and a hard lesson to teach…namely, you don’t mess with a man’s heroes. Chicago’s dark side may be no place for armchair detectives, but Mallory’s no stranger to true crime. And before he leaves the Windy City, he means to strike more than a few blows in defense of his fallen comrades…and against the evil that men do.