In the first week of the new decade, an emergency phone call shatters Chicago Private Detective Smokey Dalton's hopes for a good 1970. His adopted son Jimmy and Jimmy's best friend and cousin Keith Grimshaw need help. Smokey arrives at a South Side hotel across from the boys' school in time to clean up a horrible mess, one the boys mostly solve on their own. But the boys' heroic actions echo across all of Chicago. Smokey finds himself standing alone against street gangs, the mob, and the Democratic Machine. If he fights this battle and fails, he stands to lose not only Jimmy and their future together, but also his life. "Easy comparisons can be made to Dave Robicheaux, Spenser, and Easy Rawlins, but Smokey is his own man. Women want to be near him and cook his dinner as he settles his nerves with three fingers of Scotch. A great read for fans of detectives guarding an inner city's grimy streets." -Library Journal "Dalton's hard won small victory vividly illustrates a turbulent period of our recent cultural history." -Publisher's Weekly ..". a gripping read that drags us deeper into Smokey] Dalton's uneasy world." -Entertainment Weekly on War at Home Acclaim for the Smokey Dalton Series Edgar Award nomination Shamus nomination for Best Private Eye Hardcover Novel Winner of two Spotted Owl Awards for Best Mystery by a Northwest Writer Oregon Book Award Nomination"

The case starts out close to home: Daniel Kirkland never arrived at Yale for the spring semester. Daniel's mother Grace, a friend of Smokey Dalton's and his son Jimmy's beloved teacher, sacrificed everything to get Daniel into one of the country's most prestigious schools. What at first seems like a missing persons case becomes something bigger, as Smokey delves into the heart of the anti-war movement. He goes from the storied halls of Yale University to the slums outside New Haven to Harlem as he searches for Daniel. All the while Smokey hears rumors he doesn't like, from violent attacks to talk of bombs. Gradually he realizes that he has stumbled into America's second war of the decade: the war at home. "War, which deals with the disappearance of a militant black Yale student during the long, hot summer of 1969, is a gripping read that drags us deeper into Dalton's uneasy world." -Entertainment Weekly "As with the best of Mosley and Chandler, Dalton's fifth outing leaves us eagerly anticipating the next one." -Entertainment Weekly

Chicago, 1969: The trial of eight protestors from the Democratic Convention the previous year has the whole world watching-and all of Chicagoland on edge. Smokey Dalton feels the pressure: more cops on the streets, more FBI in his neighborhood. But when the landlord at one of Sturdy Investments' South Side properties dies alone in his apartment, Smokey agrees to investigate He finds old human bones in the basement, along with hints of more. Smokey and his girlfriend, Sturdy's CEO Laura Hathaway, worry that Laura's father knew who used that basement and why. Without involving law enforcement, they decide to hold a thorough investigation and discover secrets they never ever imagined, secrets that could threaten Smokey, Laura, Sturdy, and one of Chicago's greatest institutions. Secrets worth killing for. Chosen as one of the top ten books of the year by Kirkus. Chosen as one of the best mystery novels of the year by Deadly Pleasures Magazine Winner, Spotted Owl Award for Best Mystery by a Northwest Writer. Shamus nomination for Best Private Eye Hardcover Novel. When Kris Nelscott started her impressive series about Smokey Dalton..., many critics and readers wondered how long she could keep up the pace. Days of Rage, her sixth book in the Dalton series, indicates there seems to be no end in sight. -Chicago Tribune Set in 1969 during the trial of the Chicago Eight, Edgar-finalist Nelscott's sixth Smokey Dalton novel deftly interweaves the issue of race with politics, societal question and personal relationships. -Publishers Weekly starred review

Smokey Dalton and Jimmy, the young boy he protects, have settled into a new life on Chicago's South Side. But when Smokey gets hired to investigate the death of a black man in a local park, he realizes that the murder might not be an isolated case. The Chicago Police Department doesn't really investigate black deaths, particularly near the South Side. Smokey thinks the case easy, until he digs deeper into the history of the area, a history that includes gangs, racism, and secrets so dark they threaten his very existence. Chosen as one of the top ten mystery novels of the year by the Chicago Tribune, Thin Walls shows why Publisher's Weekly gave it a starred review, and Booklist calls it "another fine entry in an outstanding series." "Somebody needs to say that Kris Nelscott is engaged in an ongoing fictional study of a thorny era in American political and racial history. If that's not enough to get 'serious' critics and readers to pay attention to her, it's their loss." -Charles Taylor, Salon.com

After attending a charity fundraiser, private investigator Smokey Dalton and his powerful girlfriend discover a critically injured woman in his neighbor's apartment, and his neighbor missing. Smokey gets the woman to a nearby hospital which proves to be a mistake: the doctor won't treat the dying woman until she tells him what happened to her. Smokey works to save the woman and find his neighbor, but everything he does makes the situation worse. Smokey has entered a secret part of America-the arcane rules of a hospital trying to follow the law as well as save lives. None of it makes sense, and all of it threatens everything Smokey believes in. "Without the slightest hint of preaching, Nelscott brilliantly illuminates the ugliness of that era-which defines Smokey's world but does not destroy him. Because of Nelscott's strong hand, it also does not overwhelm the drama of this remarkable story." -Publisher's Weekly starred review "Like the best of Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer stories, Kris Nelscott's Smokey Dalton novels are infused with an understanding of the social, political, and moral complexities of the community in which they're set. Her characters not only struggle with the contradictions that rule them but are in perpetual conflict with their surroundings. Thus, brutality is no surprise, but then neither is an act of kindness. The most dilapidated building may house a gentle soul or a rabid criminal, and so too may a luxurious home. This type of subtlety treats readers with a level of respect that makes for a rich, rewarding experience, and so it is with Stone Cribs, Nelscott's exceptional new novel." -The Boston Globe

On the run after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Private Investigator Smokey Dalton and Jimmy, the young boy he rescued, have settled under assumed names in Chicago. But history won't leave him alone. His job in security at the Chicago Hilton places him in the center of the protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Worse, a killer works his South Side neighborhood, killing children. The Chicago Police Department doesn't solve crimes in the South Side. Smokey can't ignore the crimes, any more than he can ignore the tension building in the city that hot August. He has to take action, before he loses everything. Chosen as one of the top ten mystery novels of the year by both Deadly Pleasures and Booklist, Smoke-Filled Rooms fulfills the promise of the award-winning Dangerous Road, and makes Smokey Dalton into one of the mystery field's most memorable detectives. "Nelscott does a superb job of using a familiar historical moment to dramatize an intimate human drama, as Smokey and Jimmy struggle to avoid becoming anonymous casualties lost behind the headlines. This series has all the passion and precision of Walter Mosley's early Easy Rawlins novels, but it is not derivative. In fact, Smokey just may be a more compelling character than the celebrated Easy." -Booklist starred review

Kris Nelscott can lay claim to the strongest series of detective novels now being written by an American author." -Salon Winner of the Herodotus Award For Best Historical Mystery Private Investigator Smokey Dalton works for Memphis, Tennessee's black community. He has almost no interaction with the white hierarchy, even though they exist only blocks away. So he's surprised the day a white woman walks into his Beale Street office. Laura Hathaway has sought him out because he's a beneficiary in her mother's will, and Laura wants to know why. So does Smokey. He's never heard of the Hathaways, but his search will take him on a journey that will change everything he's ever known. Set against the backdrop of the strike and protests that will end with Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination, A Dangerous Road combines the politics of race, betrayal, unexpected love, and the terrible cost of trust into a story so memorable the Mystery Writers of America chose it as one of the top five novels of the year. "It's not hard to draw parallels between Nelscott's PI Smokey Dalton and Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins, another secretive, canny black man trying to solve mysteries while circumspectly navigating the white world. But Dalton's no knock-off... -Entertainment Weekly