Links: Interview: David Skibbins / Show Article /

Control versus chaos. Warren Ritter has built his life on routine -- a time and a place for everything. It's kept him free. However, over the last year, he's become involved in some murder investigations, made some actual friends, found his daughter and grandson, committed to a relationship, and turned his life upside down. When Sally's friend Dominatrix Thérèse de Farge is arrested for the murder of one of her clients -- Warren doesn't want to get involved. Sally is hurt and angry but moves on to solve the case with the help of her roomie, teenager Heather Tallbridge. But the cards won't let Warren alone; the Hanged Man keeps popping out of the deck. Now, he needs to look at himself and find a new way to live with chaos.

Product Description: The cops have jailed the wrong person: dominatrix Thérèse de Farge. Sally McLaughlin, a feisty paraplegic hacker, sets out to save her friend and ropes Warren Ritter, sarcastic tarot card reader and general overall eccentric, into yet another murder investigation.

To solve this one, everyone has to go undercover. Sally puts on a business suit and tries to get a corporate job. Heather Tallbridge, Sally's teenage roommate, passes herself off as a journalist. And Warren sets off to the Academy of Correction to become Master Ritter, a bondage and discipline specialist. As they get closer to uncovering the murderer, Sally, Heather, and Warren face extreme peril, and a confrontation with their darkest fears as well as their own buried hungers.

In the fourth book of the Tarot Card Mystery series, the peaceful Marin countryside provides a sharp contrast to the scandalous alternative lifestyles of some of its inhabitants, and David Skibbins takes readers deep inside the minds of all three of his odd and unforgettable characters.

(Source: St. Martin's Minotaur)