USA Fiction Challenge: New York

The 2014 USA Fiction Challenge is heading to the home stretch. This time we visit the state of New York as well as the city of New York. The highlight will be Valerie Frankel's A Body To Die For.

 

Investigating the suspected infidelities of a former tennis pro's wife, private detective Wanda Mallory becomes an unlikely member of an elite health club, where she uncovers a series of other crimes, including murder.

Printing History

Written by Valerie Frankel

Simon & Shuster, Inc

Pocket Books

ISBN 671 79520

July 1995

E Book
August 2010

Kindle Edition
February 2011

Prime Time For Murder by Valerie Frankel

 A Date To Die for!

  

Cover by Tom McKeveny

When sultry Sabrina Delorean, the hotter-than-thou hostess of the popular trash-TV dating game, Party Girls, asks Wanda Mallory, the tough, tart-tongued, Times Square P.I. to be her bodyguard, Wanda can't believe her ears. But her eyes are not lying when she catches the latest live episode of Sabrina's show,  where a sensitive stud wins a date with an angel, and loses his life to a bullet meant for Sabrina. Wanda may be a streetwise sleuth in the city that never sleeps, but she's just a babe in televisionland. Racing to preempt another hit, she grapples with more phonies and flakes that one can click a remote at.

Is the killer..............

• A two-faced network bigwig? 
• A one-legged lothario? 
• A glad-handling studio sycophant? 
• A pill-pushing shrink who's the mother of all meddlesome moms? 

As Wanda takes to the airwaves to find out, be sure to tune in, turn on, and see who drops dead!

Wanda Mallory Mystery #3

Printing History

Written by Valerie Frankel

Simon & Schuster, Inc

Pocket Books

ISBN 671 79519

January 1994

A Deadline For Murder by Valerie Frankel

She's a hard-boiled P.I. staling a soft-core killer!

Wanda's a clotheshorse,

a flirt, nobody's fool, 

and the slickest private eye on New York's mean streets!

Wanda Mallory, P.I., is a tough-talking chain-smoking, funky-chic owner of the Do It Right Detective Agency in Times Square, New York City. Wanda's heart belongs to "Mama" her pearl handled .22 and to her cat Otis. But she's always ready for a good time, and a good cause. Like finding out who strangled her friend and former employer Belle Beatrice, the bitchy, gorgeous publisher of the women's soft-porn magazine Midnight. According to Belle's prophetic will, Wanda has a week to catch the killer. With half a million dollars for motivation if she meets the deadline. From trendy Soho restaurants to the gritty bars of Times Square where Belle's Swedish stud fiance finds consolation. Wanda and her photographer-sidekick Alex Beaudine heat up the city, looking for an X-rated murderer who's leaving hare-core clues. Clues such as obscene black balloons and erotic poems that are terrorizing the staff at Midnight. Wanda and Alex are one step ahead of the police in a race for time and money, to catch a killer before he strikes again!

Wanda Mallory Mystery #1

Printing History

Written by Valerie Frankel

Simon & Shuster, Inc

Pocket Books

ISBN 671 73021

February 1991

Murder On Wheels by Valerie Frankel

It's full throttle attraction

and Wanda's one tough P.I. who's ready to roll

Tom McKeveny Cover

Death Pops A Wheelie!

Sparks fly when Wanda Mallory, proprietress of Times Square's Do It Right Detective Agency, meets the heated glaze of Strom Bismark, leader of New York City's notorious biker gang, Blood & Iron.

Still smarting from another romantic disaster, Wanda impulsively takes on the smoldering Strom as a client. someone has ripped off a bundle of cash from his East Village social club/casino, and the case gets as hot as a biker's muffler when a corpse is discovered in Strom's office. Flush Royale, a sexy blackjack dealer, has been fatal bashed with a frozen salami. Wanda goes undercover and out of breath in Flush's skintight mini and leather bustier, spinning a roulette wheel in Strom's illegal casino. With her estranged lover and sidekick Alex Beaudine, she's tangling with biker brutes, a finger breaking loan shark, and finally with Flush's killer, who's revving up to send Wanda on a one-way trip down the Highway to Hell.

Printing History

Written by Valerie Frankel

Simon & Shuster, Inc

Pocket Books

ISBN 671 73195

March 1992