THE EXCITEMENT OF AN ACTION THRILLER AND THE SWIRLING EMOTIONS OF A MAINSTREAM PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL...

VOLUMES 2 and 3 of Kimberly Amato’s heart-stopping Jasmine Steele series are collected in this nicely priced bundle, and if we do say so, this series has it all—a tough-as-hell yet complex female cop and the kind of pulse-pounding plots you might find in a psychological thriller. Jazz is very much a family kind of woman—and her family’s a bit unconventional; that is, what's left of it. She’s had a lot of heartbreak; by now, she can pretty well stand up to anything. Readers will love her as much for her compassion and loyalty to friends and family as for her bravery. Still, we feel we should mention:
Jasmine’s not for the faint-hearted. But hard-boiled police procedural fans will rejoice.

MELTING STEELE, BOOK TWO
Still recovering from a murder attempt, tough New York homicide detective Jasmine Steele is slowly coming to grips with a world that's seemingly gone mad. But her short-lived peace of mind is once again shattered by a case…an entire family's been viciously murdered. Hard-boiled alert: author Kimberly Amato pulls no punches. The mother's throat was slit while trying to call for help and the father was shot in the chest, then gruesomely sliced up while still alive, like a scene from a horror film. Also found, the body of their young son, about Jazz’s son’s age, left in the closet with a snapped neck.

But it's the remaining clues to a missing fourth victim--a teenage daughter named Kaley--that leave her reeling. Kaley's seemingly disappeared without a trace. Soon Jazz discovers that the family had plenty of disturbing skeletons in its closet. Skeletons possibly warranting hiring a hit man on the Internet…

Ever-fearless Jazz jumps head-first into the opaque abyss of corrupt New York finance and down the dangerous and secretive rabbit hole of the Deep Web. Can she manage to trace a cold-blooded killer, using only the most untraceable technology known to man?

BREAKING STEELE, BOOK THREE
Gory video game violence comes home to roost when two store managers are brutally murdered in the back room of their gaming shop just before peek holiday season. The corporation that owns the store is doing everything it can to keep the matter quiet—but they won’t succeed if detective Jasmine Steele cracks the case. Because said corporation has plenty of skeletons in its closet; and one of them is far too familiar to our heroine…Kimberly Amato serves up a heart-pounding, chilling addition to the Jasmine Steele hard-boiled mystery series—a fast-paced police procedural that’s as gripping as it is eerily personal. And it comes with a captivating (although, as Jazz might say, a slightly “nerdy”) bonus: a heaping dose of the fascinating ins and outs of video game subculture. Which is far more murderous than the average reader would suspect.

Those who can't get enough of the exciting new wave of hard-boiled women sleuths, fueled by writers like Megan Abbott, Laura Lippmann, Lisa Lutz, and Vicki Hendricks will love Amato’s take-no-prisoners style, her unflinching attention to harrowing detail, and, not least, her most memorable creation—Jasmine Steele herself.

Lovers of traditional mysteries won't be left out either. They’ll appreciate the web of fierce loyalty tempered with fearful caution that links Jazz’s tiny but hardy support system—both at work and at home. Somehow or other, in each book, Amato manages to mix all the excitement of an action thriller with the swirling emotions of a mainstream psychological novel.