Sisters in Crime is an organization of 3400 members in 48 chapters world-wide, offering networking, advice and support to mystery authors. The organization was founded by Sara Paretsky and a group of women at the 1986 Bouchercon mystery conference in Baltimore.
Members include authors, readers, publishers, agents, booksellers and librarians, who are, as their website states, “bound by our affection for the mystery genre and our support of women who write mysteries.”
In honor of its twenty-year anniversary, a new twenty story anthology, Sisters on the Case, has been released, edited, appropriately enough, by Paretsky herself. She has contributed a story featuring an eleven-year-old V.I. Warshawki who is searching for her missing father during the Chicago race riots of the summer of 1966.
This eclectic collection also includes stories by Margaret Maron, Barbara D'Amato, and Carolyn Hart, as well as the late Charlotte MacLeod.
Another new addition to the Library’s mystery story collections is Dead Man’s Hand, an anthology of fourteen poker-related stories, edited by Otto Penzler.
Michael Connelly fans will enjoy watching Harry Bosch's exquisite bluff in One-Dollar Jackpot. Other contributors include Alexander McCall Smith, Laura Lippman, and John Lescroart.
There are a number of mysteries that play out around the poker table, including the recent Cashed In, by Jackie Chance in which an amateur Hold 'Em player boards a high-stakes poker cruise where someone is turning card sharks into shark bait, and The Picasso Flop: A Texas Hold 'Em Mystery by Vincent Van Patten, set at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
By the way, Robert Randisi is ready to take you back in time to the mythical Vegas of yore once again in Luck Be a Lady, Don't Die, the second “Rat Pack” mystery. Frank needs Eddie Gianelli's help again when the woman he was planning to meet in Sin City disappears, leaving behind her luggage and a “stiff” in the bathtub.
So, stick with me baby.... and Luck, be a lady tonight!