The Wombat Strategy — Claire McNab

Best-selling mystery novelist Claire McNab (The Carol Ashton Mysteries, The Denise Cleever Mysteries) launches her newest series with a bang. Running a pub in the tiny Australian outback town of Wollegudgerie doesn't offer much fun or future to knockabout Aussie dyke Kylie Kendall. So when the father she never knew dies and leaves her 51 percent of his Los Angeles-based private detective agency, it's bright lights, big city for America-bound Kylie. Not so happy about her arrival is her father's former (and Kylie's new) business partner, the beautiful, enigmatic Arianna Creeling, who wants to buy out Kylie and gives her a decidedly chilly reception in sunny Southern California. But the two women soon have other matters besides their bickering to attend to. Dr. Deer, psychiatrist to the stars whose “slap, slap, get on with it” approach has made him a celebrity, hires them to investigate the theft of records and subsequent suicide of a successful but almost universally reviled film director. Concerned for his reputation, Dr. Deer would much prefer that the death of his former client be revealed to be a murder. As the sparks between Arianna and Kylie fly, the City of Angels has turned out to be much more difficult and dangerous than Kylie had imagined.

Transplanted Australian Claire McNab has written 18 best-selling mystery novels, 14 featuring the highly popular Detective-Inspector Carol Ashton and four featuring undercover agent Denise Cleever. She has served as the president of Sisters in Crime and is a member of both the Mystery Writers of America and the Science Fiction Writers of America. She lives in Los Angeles.