The Karnikov Card: A Spade/Paladin Conundrum

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Secret Master of Fandom and Private Detective Spade faces an impossible mission: He must save Celebcon Five from itself. The convention that’s trying to out Comic-con Comic-con has decided to make Dmitri Karnikov its guest of honor. Spade doesn’t want the mega-celebrity anywhere near a science fiction convention. When a celebrity of Karnikov’s wattage agrees to attend, something’s wrong.

Then Spade’s mysterious friend Paladin reveals the secret to Karnikov’s attendance, and Spade must act quickly—or Celebcon Five might become a crime scene of the worst possible kind.

“The Karnikov Card” first appeared in the January/February issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s short mystery fiction has won the Ellery Queen Readers’ Choice Award twice, and has been nominated for the Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony Awards. Her mystery novels appear under the names Kris Nelscott and Kris Rusch.

If you like this story about Spade and Paladin, you might also try:

Stomping Mad (Spade alone)
The Vanishing Boy (Spade/Paladin)

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Jan 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465798657

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award. She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson, romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter, and futuristic sf as Kris DeLake.  She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own. To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.

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