Lillian Byrd Series

Lillian Byrd is a small-time reporter with a flair for making big-time mistakes-like getting fired for fending off the boss's son with an X-Acto knife and breaking up with her girlfriend for no good reason-so her investigation into the disappearances of women in the Detroit area might not be the best idea. But when one of the missing women turns up dead and Lillian recognizes the bizarrely mutilated corpse, she's in too deep to get out. Of course, it doesn't help that she's still fighting off the boss's son and ducking the aggressively amorous overtures of the roughest dyke in town. Now, after simultaneously blowing the case for the police and revealing herself to the off-kilter killers, she's completely on her own. Can she catch the murderers before they catch up with her?

After her narrow brush with death in Holy Hell, you'd think Lillian Byrd would have learned to keep her head down, but when a friend in crisis calls from California, Lillian jumps on a plane and wings her way from Detroit to Palm Springs-and danger. It's the long weekend of the Dinah Shore golf tournament, one of the top women's sporting events in the world, when thousands of women descend on the desert and take over. At a pre-championship party, Lillian leaps into a romance with a top LPGA star. But her superstar athlete has a secret: Someone is quietly terrorizing her. Lillian, eager to help, goes undercover as a high-profile reporter, an unhinged nun, and a professional caddie while uncovering layer after disturbing layer of the golfer's past. Finally, with violence erupting at every turn, Lillian uncovers her lover's ultimate horrifying secret-and it is not at all what she had guessed. With this book, Elizabeth Sims presents another nail-biting thriller featuring her oh-so-human amateur detective. Damn Straight crackles and zings and will have you laughing through your shivers.

Once again Lillian Byrd is down on her luck, strumming her mandolin for spare quarters alongside Blind Lonnie, Detroit's resident blues guitarist. But a chance encounter with her childhood friend Duane is about to completely capsize her life. One summer night when Lillian was twelve, flames ripped through the Polka Dot, a bar owned and run by her parents. Three bodies were found in the ashes: those of her mother, her father, and the barmaid, Trix Hawley. Or so Lillian has always thought. But when Lillian and Duane put their stories together, the past erupts into a wild enigma. As the two friends travel, accompanied by the tenacious crime writer Minerva LeBlanc, to the underbelly of Las Vegas to find the truth about their parents, Lillian must face the demons of the past in ways she never dreamed possible. With Lucky Stiff, the author of the best-selling Lillian Byrd Crime Series has crafted yet another white-knuckle thriller.

Lillian Byrd's battered Chevrolet Caprice is convulsing through the last of its death throes; her pet rabbit, Todd, ails; and as usual she's single-and flat broke. For a few extra bucks she signs on to help an old friend, retired police detective Erma Porrocks, renovate her house, but of course nothing ever goes smoothly in the life of Lillian Byrd. The end of her first day on the job yields a partially demolished wall, a mysterious stash of cash, and a fresh corpse. And Lillian's attentions are diverted by the appearance of a drop-dead gorgeous neighbor. In trying to figure out the twisted facts, Lillian uncovers greed, deception, and love, not necessarily in that order!

Lillian Byrd has been searching her soul after the gut-wrenching experience of killing someone in self-defense. Scrabbling to make ends meet, she takes a job as a quasi-detective, solving life's little mysteries for a pair of eccentric women in one of Detroit's last prestigious neighborhoods. When she spots a corpse on the next-door lawn, she jumps back into honest work as an investigative journalist. Her friend Mercedes reveals that the dead woman, Abby Rawson, played on a women's softball team she manages and pressures Lillian into taking her spot. Softball turns to hardball when Lillian not only plunges into a love affair with the team's sought-after pitcher but also goes undercover as an exterminator, a squatter, and a charity worker to investigate Abby's death and the corrupt medical organization she worked for. No one on the team is above suspicion, and as they get closer to snagging the coveted championship title-and Lillian gets closer to discovering the dark truth behind Abby's murder-she fights to keep her new love in her life and literally save her own. Filled with Lillian Byrd's trademark snark, nail-biting twists and turns, and a thrilling climax, Left Field scores a grand slam that'll leave listeners cheering in the stands.

Elizabeth Sims presents Book 6 in the Lillian Byrd Crime series.