A Dangerous Road

It's February 1968, and tense race relations in Memphis are beginning to build into real conflict. The sanitation workers' strike has been going on for almost three weeks, and marches are beginning to turn into riots. African-American P.I. Smokey Dalton is hired by Laura Hathaway, a young white woman from up north, to look into her mother's reasons for remembering Smokey generously in her will. Smokey reluctantly takes the case, as much to satisfy his own curiosity about these people he never knew as because he needs the work. What he uncovers is a thirty-year-old secret so powerful it will shatter both their lives. Furthermore, this turning point couldn't come at a worse time for Smokey. As February turns to March, then April, Smokey must watch his city crumble around him and deals with the approaching visit of his childhood friend, now estranged from him, Martin Luther King, Jr. - a visit that turns out to be the very destiny of both men, and the city itself. This wonderful novel launches a unique and atmospheric series, introducing an appealing character in Smokey Dalton and an equally compelling time period in our history.

Literature & Fiction

NELSCOTT, Kris

United States

Minotaur Books

In the aftermath of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Smokey Dalton heads for Chicago to protect a young boy who knows too much about the crime, in an atmospheric whodunit set against the turbulent backdrop of Chicago on the eve of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. By the author of A Dangerous Road.

Smoke-Filled Rooms

"I hear you help people find things." So begins the latest case for Smokey Dalton, Kris Nelscott's enigmatic African-American p.i. But when Mrs. Alice Foster comes to the door of his small apartment, she's not missing a pet, or even a loved one: She wants Smokey to find her husband's killer. Three weeks ago, Louis Foster was found propped up against a tree in a city park, stabbed once through the heart. The cops have given up, and Smokey isn't surprised: It's 1968, and the Chicago PD cops who responded to the scene have clearly written off the death of this black man as a mugging gone wrong, or something equally unimportant. Case closed. Not for Smokey. He starts at the beginning, enlisting the reluctant help of a photojournalist who took pictures at the scene. Then, going back through newspaper archives, looking for patterns, clues, wild theories-anything that will help him figure out why a middle-class black man would be found dead in a public park miles from home-Smokey learns something startling. Louis Foster doesn't look to be the first. Amid trying to protect his adopted ten-year-old son, who's being hassled at school by some older gang members, Smokey, the photojournalist, and two renegade cops who risk their careers to help him, set off on the hunt for a killer. Nelscott's Edgar Award-nominated A Dangerous Road, which introduced Smokey Dalton and told the story of the days leading up to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination in Memphis, launched an atmospheric crime series set during one of the most turbulent times of our recent past. Now, in this third installment, she delivers a gripping thriller about one man struggling to build a life in this divided city the only way he knows how, and the men who would kill to stop him.

Thin Walls: A Smokey Dalton Novel

It's Christmas time, 1969, in Chicago. After a night out, Smokey Dalton, Kris Nelscott's enigmatic African-American P.I., and his girlfriend find a young woman bleeding to death in his neighbor's apartment. Upon arriving with her at the hospital, they discover that her injuries are due to a botched illegal abortion. This act of charity blooms into a more complicated situation when Smokey learns that the woman became pregnant after being raped. The woman survives, but the fallout is deadly: Her ex-husband vows revenge at any cost. And in a city torn apart by racial strife, gang wars, and a burgeoning drug problem, Smokey believes that cost could be too high. Kris Nelscott, one of the most nuanced, intelligent writers of crime fiction working today, has authored another heart-stopping, complicated novel of a country ripped apart at the seams and a lone man doing all he can to put things right.

Stone Cribs (P.I. Smokey Dalton, 4)

It's summertime in 1969 when African-American P.I. Smokey Dalton and his adopted son Jimmy leave behind the hot violence of the streets of Chicago and head east to look for a missing college student. Daniel Kirkland never showed up for his spring semester at Yale University and seems to have disappeared without a trace. Daniel's mother, a local school teacher who works regularly with Jimmy, asks Smokey to see what he can find out. The search for Daniel takes Smokey from the hallowed halls of the nation's wealthiest university to the poorest slums on the outskirts of New Haven. The harder he searches, the more he learns about the dark side of the anti-war movement, in which the idealistic young Daniel may have become involved. And he keeps hearing rumors about bombs. When the trail finally leads Smokey to New York City, he discovers that someone might be trying to kill Daniel and Daniel's friends. Only nothing is exactly as it seems. Soon the rumors Smokey's been hearing become more and more concrete, and he knows it's only a matter of time before a bomb goes off. Because Smokey, a Korean War veteran, recognizes the pattern: He has stumbled into a war. A war at home. In this blistering new book, award-winner Kris Nelscott continues her hard-hitting, absorbing look at the turbulence of the late sixties and early seventies, all in the guise of the modern crime novel.

War at Home (Smokey Dalton Novels)

It's summertime in 1969 when African-American P.I. Smokey Dalton heads east to look for a missing college student. Daniel Kirkland never showed up for his spring semester at Yale and seems to have disappeared without a trace. The search for Daniel takes Smokey from the hallowed halls of the nation's wealthiest university to the poorest slums on the outskirts of New Haven. The harder he searches, the more he learns about the dark side of the antiwar movement, in which the idealistic young Daniel may have become involved. And he keeps hearing rumors about bombs. When the trail finally leads Smokey to New York City, he discovers that someone might be trying to kill Daniel. Rumors become more concrete, and Smokey knows it's only a matter of time before a bomb goes off. Because Smokey, a Korean War veteran, recognizes the pattern: he has stumbled into a war. A war at home. In this blistering new book, award-winner Kris Nelscott continues her hard-hitting look at the turbulence of the late sixties and early seventies, all in the guise of the modern crime novel.

War at Home

It's 1969 and the city of Chicago is in turmoil. The celebrity trial of the Chicago Eight---charged with inciting a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention---has begun. Protests abound over the trial and the conflict has caught the attention of everyone from the Black Panthers to city gangs to local trade unions. Meanwhile, African-American P.I. Smokey Dalton and his adopted son, Jimmy, are keeping a low profile. They've been on the run from their native Memphis since Jimmy witnessed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., but have slowly settled into a steady life in Chicago. Smokey continues to accept cases and to inspect property for Sturdy Investments, the real-estate company owned by Laura Hathaway, his on-again, off-again girlfriend. But the delicate balance in Smokey's daily life is threatened when he makes a horrible discovery in a house he's inspecting. Does what they've found have any connection to Laura's business, and her father, who used to run it? Is it evidence of a long-ago killer, and if so, how has it remained buried for so long? Or is it something that could threaten Smokey---and Jimmy, and Laura---today? Smokey must answer all these questions before the truth about what he's found is discovered by someone willing to kill to keep it secret, while the violent chaos surrounding "the trial of the century" whirls around them.

Days of Rage

It's Christmastime, 1969, in Chicago. After a night out, Smokey Dalton, Kris Nelscott's enigmatic African-American P.I., and his girlfriend find a young woman bleeding to death in his neighbor's apartment. Upon arriving with her at the hospital, they discover that her injuries are due to a botched illegal abortion. This act of charity blooms into a more complicated situation when Smokey learns that the woman became pregnant after being raped. The woman survives, but the fallout is deadly: Her ex-husband vows revenge at any cost. And in a city torn apart by racial strife, gang wars, and a burgeoning drug problem, Smokey believes that cost could be too high. Kris Nelscott, one of the most nuanced, intelligent writers of crime fiction working today, has authored another heart-stopping, complicated novel of a country ripped apart at the seams and a lone man doing all he can to put things right.

Stone Cribs

St. Martin's: Griffin

It's February 1968, and tense race relations in Memphis are beginning to build into real conflict. The sanitation workers' strike has been going on for almost three weeks, and marches are beginning to turn into riots.
African-American P.I. Smokey Dalton is hired by Laura Hathaway, a young white woman from up north, to look into her mother's reasons for remembering Smokey generously in her will. Smokey reluctantly takes the case, as much to satisfy his own curiosity about these people he never knew as because he needs the work. What he uncovers is a thirty-year-old secret so powerful it will shatter both their lives. 
Furthermore, this turning point couldn't come at a worse time for Smokey. As February turns to March, then April, Smokey must watch his city crumble around him and deals with the approaching visit of his childhood friend, now estranged from him, Martin Luther King, Jr. - a visit that turns out to be the very destiny of both men, and the city itself. 
This wonderful novel launches a unique and atmospheric series, introducing an appealing character in Smokey Dalton and an equally compelling time period in our history.

St. Martin's Paperbacks

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by NELSCOTT, Kris. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by NELSCOTT, Kris

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by NELSCOTT, Kris. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A Dangerous Road

Smoke-Filled Rooms

Thin Walls: A Smokey Dalton Novel

Stone Cribs (P.I. Smokey Dalton, 4)

Thin Walls: A Smokey Dalton Novel

War at Home (Smokey Dalton Novels)

War at Home

Days of Rage

Stone Cribs

A Dangerous Road