Ellen Hart's third book features restaurateur Jane Lawless, witty sidekick Cordelia Thorn, a famous theatrical family and its secrets, and the streets of Minneapolis. A buried childhood and adult vengeance draws Lawless into the bosom of the Werness family. Father Gaylord is a famous playwright. Daughter Antonia has followed suit, but detests and defies him. Son Torald, once a brilliant actor, now drinks and schemes off-stage. Only reclusive Lucy keeps a grip on reality. But when ambitious Billy Brewster arrives in Minneapolis for the run of Antonia's new play, a chain of events leads inevitably to murder.
Ellen Hart is the author of twenty-five crime novels in two different series.?? She is a five-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Mystery, a three-time winner of the Minnesota Book Award for Best Popular Fiction, a three-time winner of the Golden Crown Literary Award, a recipient of the Alice B Medal, and was made an official GLBT Literary Saint at the Saints & Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans in 2005. ?? Entertainment Weekly??named her one of the "101 Movers and Shakers in the Gay Entertainment Industry." For the past twelve years, Ellen has taught "An Introduction to Writing the Modern Mystery" through the The Loft Literary Center, the largest independent writing community in the nation. Ellen's newest Sophie Greenway mystery is No Reservations Required, (Ballantine, June 2005). The Mirror and the Mask, the seventeenth Jane Lawless mystery, was released by St. Martin's/Minotaur in November 2009.?? Ellen lives in Minneapolis with her partner of 32 years.
