Cold Call is the first in the critically acclaimed Iris Thorne mystery series by Los Angeles Times bestseller Dianne Emley, now available for the first time as an e-book and trade paperback. Bonus: includes Chapter One of Slow Squeeze, the second Iris Thorne mystery.Iris Thorne traded her job teaching the deaf for a career in Los Angeles's glittering financial district, where the day starts on Wall Street time at 6:00 a.m., and—in the "greed is good" late 1980s—all of life's questions have numbers for answers.Big numbers. With her not-quite-paid-for Anne Klein suits and Triumph sports car, which leaks a little oil, Iris is a high-stakes success. Still, the only man at the office who knew the real Iris was Alley, the deaf and handicapped mailman. When Alley is killed, the police insist he was a victim of random gang violence. Iris doesn't buy it—and Alley's death has left her with a number of problems. The first is lanky, red-headed police detective John Somers... Iris's first...

Emley's "...uncanny knack for using the perfect word gives the novel a special quality....There's action to spare...[and] an almost erotic lushness to her writing...." raved The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) of Dianne Emley's third smashing Iris Thorne mystery, Fast Friends. Now she plunges her savvy heroine into a maelstrom of marriage and murder in the Los Angeles high-tech world, proving that in a city where ruthless ambition, community property laws, and earthquakes are facts of life, nothing is really Foolproof.From where she stands in her newly purchased beachfront bungalow — complete with cozy garage for her beloved red Triumph convertible — life looks good for Los Angeles investment counselor Iris Thorne. The only clouds an her horizon are caused by her boss from hell and the never-ending office battles at McKinney Alitzer. But one hot night, everything changes. At the Gothic hilltop mansion owned by her dear friends, entrepreneurs Bridget and Kip Cross, Bridget is brutally...

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Dianne Emley's Love Kills.Back from the dead. That's how it feels for Nan Vining, a Pasadena homicide cop determined to find the brutal madman who attacked her a year ago. Nan's daughter calls the unknown assailant T. B. Mann--The Bad Man. On the job, Nan breaks rules and steals evidence, building a case file based on the certainty that T. B. Mann is obsessed with women who wear uniforms, that he hunts them, kills them, then adorns them with a pearl necklace. At the crime scene of her official assignment, the murder of an ex-con, Nan spots a graffiti tag and is sure, against all reason, that T. B. Mann was there, too. Further complicating matters is Nan's developing relationship with Detective Jim Kissick, but she knows that opening her heart means losing control. Then T. B. Mann reemerges from the shadows for a final confrontation, bringing Nan to the sudden, horrifying realization that her killer has baited...

For fans of Patricia Cornwell, Tana French, and Lisa Gardner comes a razor-sharp novel of suspense featuring Detective Nan Vining--a single mother whose worlds collide when her teenage daughter stumbles upon a grisly double homicide. When she gets the call, Nan Vining responds as a mother first and a detective second. Her daughter, Emily, has made a gruesome discovery in a secluded section of a Pasadena park: a pretty, popular young teacher from Emily's high school and a bright yet troubled transfer student--both dead and bloody in a copse of trees. But the crime scene isn't the only thing that seems off to Detective Vining. There's also the cocky classmate who was with Emily in the park--the boyfriend she never knew about. What else doesn't she know about her daughter? As she attempts to channel both her maternal and investigative instincts into one single point of focus, Vining's superiors at the Pasadena Police Department are moving at lightning...

"Sharp and stylish... Clever and cool." –Val McDermid, Manchester Evening News (UK)Fast Friends is the third in the critically acclaimed Iris Thorne mystery series by Los Angeles Times bestseller Dianne Emley, now available for the first time as an e-book and trade paperback. Includes bonus: the first chapter of Foolproof, the fourth Iris Thorne mystery.A sexy and surefooted investment counselor, who made her ride to the top in her red Triumph, circa 1972, Iris Thorne seems unshakable. She's never looked back on her long climb up—certainly not as far back as her blue-collar roots in East Los Angeles. But the suicide of Dolly DeLacey, the mother of Iris's childhood friend, Paula, has hit harder than the latest L.A. quake in 1994—and the aftershocks are just beginning.At the request of Dolly's husband, a slumlord with low friends in high places, Iris must locate the wayward Paula and bring her home for her mother's funeral. But Iris has inside information that makes returning to the...

"With her bold moral compass, her appealing in-your-face attitude and unsettled romantic life, Iris is a compelling heroine," Publishers Weekly raved about the Iris Thorne Mysteries.Iris returns in Pushover, the fifth in the critically acclaimed series by Los Angeles Times bestseller Dianne Emley.Sexy and savvy Iris Thorne has made it to the big corner office of the glittering yet cutthroat Los Angeles investment firm, McKinney Alitzer. She's looking ahead to a bright future with new boyfriend Garland Hughes when the past comes calling. Iris's ex-fiancé Todd Fillinger surfaces after many years and invites Iris to participate in a lucrative new venture in the wild and woolly emerging Russian market—red-hot yet dangerous in the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Iris's instincts warn her to stay home but she's intrigued, not least because she has personal business still to settle with Todd. But only hours after she's met by Todd in Moscow, he's gunned down in front of...

The crime scene was like something out of a horror movie. Billboard tycoon Oliver Mercer has been brutally slain in his home in the Pasadena hills, joined in death by his long-legged trophy girlfriend—both of their bodies displayed in a chilling tableau. The murder scene reawakens terrible memories for homicide detective Nan Vining, who survived her own harrowing attack a year earlier. While tracking the taunting gameplayer her daughter Emily dubbed T. B. Mann—The Bad Man—she is now working the Mercer case alongside her ex-flame Jim Kissick, stirring up conflicted feelings in her. From the ritzy estates of L.A.'s Lamborghini-driving set to a rocky desert outpost where rattlesnakes whisper murder, Nan will risk both her badge and her heart on a case that cuts close to the bone.From the Paperback edition.

"A superior piece of storytelling..." –Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times Book ReviewSlow Squeeze is the second in the critically acclaimed Iris Thorne mystery series by Los Angeles Times bestseller Dianne Emley, now available for the first time as an e-book. Includes bonus material: Chapter One of Fast Friends, the third Iris Thorne Mystery.Iris Thorne survived the purge following McKinney Alitzer's chain of scandals. The murders, money-laundering, and million-dollar embezzlement were front-page dirt—and rumor has it that Iris knows where the bucks are buried. Now she's the firm's highest-paid and most senior investment counselor. But happiness is a rare commodity in Iris's private life—she and her LAPD lover are approaching a dead end.Enter, on purple three-inch heels, the hottest prospect in town. Barbie Stringfellow's a ripe, buxom, and very rich Atlanta widow ready to invest. She's brash, tacky, and smart; like Iris, she's a self-made woman. Despite the alarm bells ringing...

Homicide police detective, single mother of a teenage daughter, and lover to her partner Jim Kissick, Nan Vining wishes that life was a little more serene, more like it is at Georgia Berryhill's Malibu Canyon compound--or like it's supposed to be there, anyway. But three bizarre deaths have brought Vining and Kissick through the exclusive gates of this healing ground for the well-heeled. First there's the double homicide of a celebrity private eye and his nude, drugged-out lover. Then there's the inexplicable drowning of a Pasadena socialite. Georgia Berryhill--charismatic self-help guru to the stars--is one link to both investigations. A second link is Vining's own mother, who was a friend to one of the victims and was being wooed by another. Now A-listers, wannabes, lost souls, and keepers of long-hidden secrets all converge at the Berryhill compound. Some search for love and happiness, while others come for murder.From the Paperback edition.