Bullets Hardback - 2003

When a contract killer bumps off a high roller in a Las Vegas casino, a tangle of romance, gambling, and gunplay follows. The killer, Lily Marsden, is a mysterious and cold woman who is a true professional. But soon, the casino owner, his henchmen, and the victim's two brothers are on Lily's trail.

Former Chicago cop Joe Riley is pursuing Lily too. She cost him his job as a homicide investigator when suspicion of a bookie's murder fell on him. Joe is certain Lily killed the bookie, and Riley's tracked her across the country to Vegas.

Throw in some local cops, a playboy, a new widow, a rug merchant, a harridan, and a couple of idiot gamblers named Delbert and Mookie, and the mixture soon boils with intrigue and murder. Add a splash of romance as a strange magnetism develops between Lily and Joe, dust the whole concoction with Steve Brewer's trademark humor, and you end up with "Bullets"-a crime novel you won't soon forget.

Steve Brewer is the author of eight other crime novels, as well as a humor book, "Trophy Husband: ASurvival Guide to Working at Home," His weekly newspaper column, "The Home Front," is distributed nationally by Scripps Howard News Service. Brewer lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife and two sons.