[Mallory 05] • Nice Weekend for a Murder

Everybody has someone they�d secretly like to kill. For Mallory and his fellow professional mystery authors, that someone is caustic book critic Kirk Rath. And while that�s no secret, it�s certainly a surprise when a busload of writers takes part in a mountain resort�s Murder Mystery Weekend � and discovers their archenemy has been cast in the plum part of the victim.

What�s more surprising is how well Kirk Rath plays dead � until Mallory discovers the most hated man on Mohonk Mountain isn�t playing. Now, snowbound in a house full of murder mystery writers, murder mystery fans, and at least one mystery murderer, Mallory must once more play detective � for real � while keeping the weekend game-players from finding out there�s a genuine game of deadly cat-and-mouse afoot. And that�s the easy part. What�s going to be harder than Mike Hammer�s fist is figuring out if one of his comrades in crime fiction is capable of putting down the pen�and picking up the sword.

Murder will out, as they say. But can even the masterful Mallory outwit a roguish gallery of the finest plotters in print?