FIRST LADY **SIGNED COPY**

Naperville, IL, U.S.A.: Sourcebooks, Incorporated, 2001. First edition, so stated, with complete number line beginning with 1. Fine, unread copy in fine dust jacket, not price clipped, in protective mylar cover. "Malone, who created a stir a decade ago with some award-winning mystery-thrillers (Fast Love; Red Clay), returns after a long absence with this North Carolina-based thriller starring his likable previous protagonists, police chief Cuddy Mangum and his chief of homicide, Lt. Justin Savile V. They are up against a serial killer dubbed by the local press Guess Who, whose female victims are left looking like martyred saints; media attention steps up a notch when one of his victims may be world-famous Irish rock singer Mavis Mahar, in Hillston for a concert. There are myriad complications: Mavis may be having an affair with the governor of the state, whose wife Cuddy has long hankered after; a crooked attorney general promptly shows up at the scene of Mavis's apparent murder and destroys a heap of evidence. Meanwhile, the bodies including that of a woman judge in a prominent local murder case keep piling up, while Cuddy and Justin are running into dead ends in their search for suspects. Malone knows his turf, and his local politics are convincingly sketched in, with many welcome touches of humor..." -- Publishers Weekly. Signed by Author. First Edition. Hard Cover. New/Fine. Book.