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New Titles for 2009
NO Quarter
New York Times bestselling author Robert Asprin, writing with Eric Del Carlo and Teresa Patterson, delves into the dark secrets of the New Orleans French Quarter in this suspenseful tale of murder and revenge, justice and unexpected courage. List Price: $15.95 Direct to Reader Discount: $14.95 Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9819866-0-9 DarkStar Books-May 28, 2009--300 pages --Click to Order-- cover painting by Nathan Smith After you've lived in the French Quarter for a while, you develop the cynical belief that you've seen it all ... that nothing can get to you anymore. You and your bar acquaintances tell yourselves and each other that you've gotten so used to the drunken tourist idiocy and random acts of violence ... that it doesn't bother you. That's bullshit. Sunshine came to New Orleans to escape her past and to catch up with her elusive dreams, but she got lost in the old city's seductive Southern nights. The tempting dark side of the French Quarter catered to her weaknesses, offering her just exactly what she desired-cheap drugs, the wrong kind of men, and the thrill of living on the edge. Alienated from her friends and in need of help, she called out to one of them ... but her message didn't get through in time. When she tries to go it alone, she walks down the wrong street into the wrong patch of darkness and meets the brutal, bloody end to her dreams at the point of a knife. In another city, her death might be written off as a mugging, just another statistic on the police blotter. Not so for the NOPD, to whom the safe reputation of the French Quarter is a priority, even if the victim is a waitress and not a treasured, pampered tourist. Not so for the French Quarter locals, because no matter how far she'd fallen, Sunshine was one of their own. And no mere mugger in New Orleans or any other city would have left a victim's body framed by the crude remnants of a botched Voodoo ritual, a display designed to insult the true practitioners of that religion. To Maestro, Sunshine's death represents not only a tragedy but an obligation, because he's the one who missed responding to her call for help. A master of both the pool cue and the rapier, a man of regular habits and close secrets, he prefers keeping to the shadows-but to avenge Sunshine and to satisfy his tarnished honor, he'll risk opening his own less-than-savory past to question. To Bone, a waiter, and his girlfriend Alex, Sunshine was family, and the pain of her savage murder is made even more crushing by their recent estrangement from her. Because of his past connection to Sunshine, and because of a bitter, public argument with her, Bone becomes a suspect in her murder. He comes to the realization that just clearing his name won't be enough for him. Justice won't be enough. His heart cries out for vengeance, and Alex refuses to be left out of his quest. But what can three ordinary people do that the police can't? As fate draws Maestro, Bone, and Alex together in the hunt for the murderer, they find unlikely allies among the street people, bartenders, performers, and other denizens of the French Quarter. Their hunt leads them through the darkest corners of the Quarter, into the dangerous depths that lie beneath the benign "party-town" surface of the old city-and into shattering revelations about themselves. Death and destruction lie in the cards, and blood will lead to blood before honor and desire are satisfied. 
The St. Charles House
a rock 'n roll mystery set in the famous--and infamous--6th Street district of Austin, Texas by Stephen Banister List Price: $15.95 Direct to Reader Discount: $14.95 Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9819866-3-0 DarkStar Books-July 2009--250 pages --Click to Order-- cover painting by Nathan Smith Sixth Street in Austin, Texas, is notorious for its party atmosphere and its strange goings-on, but things get just a little too strange when bartender Anthony Court takes a terminal swan dive off the roof of the St. Charles House Hotel. When easygoing Emerson "Tuck" Tucker, who won the old residence hotel/office building in a poker game, starts to clear out his recently deceased tenant's apartment, he finds a large stash of cocaine hidden in a brass spittoon and an AR-15 rifle cached behind a concealed panel. The cops maintain that Court's death was a suicide, but Tuck thinks different. Drugs and guns aren't that hard to find on Sixth Street, but what he found was more coke than your average bartender would have, and way too much rifle. Tuck can't leave the question of Court's death alone. When he starts to nose around, someone breaks into his apartment in the St. Charles House and puts a bullet into Pig Dog, his beloved, if somewhat socially challenged, golden retriever. As a warning and a threat, shooting a Texan's dog is just about as effective as drawing to an inside straight. The people responsible are about to find out just how rough a poker-playing slacker of a good-old boy can play their game.
 Petrogypsies
the first novel in the "Sprocket" Series, set in an alternate world of organic, semi-sentient oilfield drilling rigs by Rory Harper List Price: $15.95 Direct to Reader Discount: $14.95 Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9819866-1-6 DarkStar Books-August 2009--250 pages --Click to Order-- cover painting by Brad Foster
 Morticai's Luck
the first novel in the Duanor Series, a swashbuckling fantasy adventure by Darlene Bolesny List Price: $15.95 Direct to Reader Discount: $14.95 Trade Paperback ISBN: DarkStar Books-September 2009--250 pages --Click to Order-- cover painting by Veronica V. Jones (in production)
Titles for 2010
 Cerveza, Texas
A new "Tuck" Tucker mystery, sequel to The St. Charles House by Stephen Banister DarkStar Books-Spring 2010
 Sagril's Tower
A new Duanor Series novel, sequel to Morticai's Luck by Darlene Bolesny DarkStar Books-Spring 2010
 Sprocket Goes International
A new Sprocket Series novel, sequel to Petrogypsies by Rory Harper DarkStar Books-Fall 2010
 Werewolve$
a new novel of adventure and terror by John Steakley NYT bestselling author of Armor and Vampire$ DarkStar Books-Fall 2010
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