Saturday, April 26, beginning at 10:00 a.m.

Join us at Booth #411

UCLA Campus

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

Saturday, April 26


10:00 a.m.

Sandi Ault signs WILD INFERNO (Berkley, $23.95). BLM agent Jamaica Wild responds to a wildfire on the Southern Ute reservation.







Joanne Harris signs THE GIRL WITH NO SHADOW (William Morrow, $24.95) and RUNEMARKS
(Knopf Books for Young Readers, $18.99). The author of CHOCOLAT signs her latest magical novels for adults and young people.

Naomi Hirahara signs SNAKESKIN SHAMISEN (Delta trade paperback, $12.00) and A HELL OF A WOMAN (Busted Flush hardcover, $26.00; simultaneous trade paperback, $18.00). The 2007 Edgar winner for best paperback original, and a fantastic collection of noir stories by and about women.

Harley Jane Kozak signs DEAD EX (Doubleday, $21.95). Wollie Shelley investigates the mysterious death of an ex-boyfriend, hoping to clear her best friend in the process.

John Lescroart signs BETRAYAL (Dutton, $26.95). San Francisco attorney Dismas Hardy agrees to take on the caseload for a colleague who's disappeared, and winds up investigating a case of murder and treason.

Peter Robinson signs FRIEND OF THE DEVIL. (William Morrow, $24.95). Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his lover, DI Annie Cabbot, investigate two apparently unrelated murders: a wheelchair-bound woman found with her throat cut on a seaside cliff, and a young student raped and strangled in a Yorkshire alley.







11:00 a.m.

11:00-11:30 only! Michael Connelly signs THE BLUE RELIGION (Little, Brown, $24.99). The book's full title says it all: Mystery Writers of America Presents The Blue Religion New Stories about Cops, Criminals, and the Chase. Connelly edited the collection, which includes stories by Alafair Burke, Edward D. Hoch, T. Jefferson Parker, and many others.







Brent Ghelfi signs VOLK'S GAME (Henry Holt & Co., $19.95). A debut novel featuring Russian gangster turned antihero Alexei Volkovoy, known to all as Volk.

Eli Gottlieb signs NOW YOU SEE HIM (Willliam Morrow, $22.95). Nick Framingham's best friend from childhood, Rob Cantor, murdered his girlfriend and killed himself six months ago, and Nick's own life is falling apart as he tries to make sense of it. As he looks for answers, Nick finds secrets that have been kept for his whole life.







Cody McFadyen signs FACE OF DEATH (Bantam, $24.00). Bobby's July Favorite is the second book to feature FBI Agent Smoky Barrett, introduced in last year's SHADOW MAN. Barrett hunts a serial killer known as The Stranger, after 16-year-old Sarah Langstrom asks for Smoky's help personally. The Stranger killed her family on her sixth birthday, and recently killed her foster family in an attempt to get to Sarah.

11:30-12:00 only! Michael Reisman signs SIMON BLOOM, GRAVITY KEEPER (Dutton, $15.99). Ages 9-12. Sixth-grader Simon Bloom finds a book that lets him manipulate the laws of physics. He shouldn't be surprised when two thugs show up to try to take it away from him.







Christopher Rice signs BLIND FALL (Scribner, $26.00).
11:30-12:00 only! Joseph Wambaugh signs HOLLYWOOD CROWS (Little, Brown, $26.99). In this sequel to 2006's HOLLYWOOD STATION, "Hollywood Nate" Weiss is working the LAPD's Community Relations Office, and gets mixed up with a socialite's revenge scheme.




12:00 p.m.

Dan Fesperman signs THE AMATEUR SPY (Knopf, $24.95). Freeman Lockhart retires from a career as an aid worker with his wife, Mila, to a Greek island. Before they can even begin their new lives, three men show up and blackmail Lockhart into spying on an old friend of his in Jordan. Meanwhile, a Palestinian-American couple mourning the loss of their daughter are drawn into a terrorist plot, and their paths cross the Lockharts'.





Christa Faust signs MONEY SHOT (Hard Case Crime paperback original, $6.99). Former porn star Angel Dare agrees to make one last movie – and winds up in the trunk of a car, shot and left for dead. But she's not going anywhere until she finds out who did this to her, and why.

Darrell James signs POLITICS NOIR (Verso trade paperback original, $16.95). "Dark Tales from the Corridors of Power."

Robert S. Levinson signs IN THE KEY OF DEATH (Five Star, $25.95)

Gary Phillips signs POLITICS NOIR (Verso trade paperback original, $16.95).







John Shannon signs POLITICS NOIR (Verso trade paperback original, $16.95) and THE DEVILS OF BAKERSFIELD (Pegasus, $25.00). Jack Liffey's pregnant teenaged daughter, Maeve, is falsely arrested for drugs possession in Bakersfield. She befriends another girl in jail, and when that girl disappears, Maeve follows her trail into an extremist evangelical church.




1:00 p.m.

Cara Black signs MURDER IN THE RUE DE PARADIS Soho Crime, $24.00. In the summer of the St-Michel Metro bombings, Aimee Leduc's ex-boyfriend, Yves Robert, reappears with a marriage proposal – but then police ask Aimee to identify Robert's body. She throws herself into the investigation, and uncovers a secret that links a militant Turkish group, an assassination plot, and the Kurdish Labor Party.

Harlan Coben signs HOLD TIGHT (Dutton, $26.95). Sarah's April favorite asks, how far is too far when it comes to protecting your child? As a quiet suburban neighborhood reels after a high school boy's suicide, one couple resorts to technological gadgetry to keep an eye on their withdrawn son. Meanwhile, a deranged serial killer is on the prowl.







Libby Fischer Hellman signs EASY INNOCENCE (Bleak House hardcover, $24.95; trade paperback, $11.95). Former Chicago cop Georgia Davis, now a PI, investigates the murder of a popular high school student who was living a secret double life.

Lisa Lutz signs CURSE OF THE SPELLMANS (Simon & Schuster, $25.00). The March Delicate but Deadly Club selection is the equally entertaining sequel to THE SPELLMAN FILES.







Cornelia Read signs THE CRAZY SCHOOL (Grand Central Publishing, $23.99). Bobby's February favorite is the sequel to 2006's acclaimed A FIELD OF DARKNESS. Madeline Dare and her husband have left Syracuse for western Massachusetts, but when Madeline's husband's job offer falls through, she has to scramble to find work. She takes a teaching job at the Santangelo Academy, a boarding school for disturbed teenagers, and finds that the school's most serious problems don't belong to the students.

Louise Ure signs THE FAULT TREE (St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95). Auto mechanic Cadence Moran was blinded in an accident eight years ago. As she walks home from work one night, a speeding car almost runs her down; Cadence thinks it's an accident, or road rage, but it proves to be something more sinister. She's the only witness to her elderly neighbor's murder, and the killer thinks that she saw the getaway car.






2:00 p.m.

James Scott Bell signs TRY DYING (Center Street, $21.99). Trial lawyer Ty Buchanan's fiancee is killed when a suicidal murderer throws himself off a highway overpass, but a witness says she survived the murderer's fall. Buchanan's search for the truth takes him into gangland Los Angeles, and puts both his career and his life at risk.

Carol Higgins Clark signs ZAPPED (Scribner, $24.00). A burglar invades Regan and Jack Reilly's Tribeca loft, in search of a safe that even the Reillys don't know about. Meanwhile, Jack investigates the theft of art from a SoHo gallery, and Regan looks for a missing insurance agent who may be preying on blond men.

Mary Higgins Clark signs WHERE ARE YOU NOW? (Simon & Schuster, $25.95). Charles "Mack" MacKenzie Jr. disappeared ten years ago, at the age of 21; once a year, he makes a single phone call to his mother, to say that he's all right. Mack's sister Carolyn, now a 26-year-old lawyer, vows to track him down.







Ronald Cutler signs THE SECRET SCROLL (Beaufort Books, $24.95). In this debut novel, archaeology professor Josh Cohan follows a dream – literally –- to the Judean desert, where he discovers an ancient scroll that seems to have been written by Jesus Christ.

Susan Arnout Smith signs THE TIMER GAME (St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95). The January Discovery Club selection introduces crime scene tech and single mother Grace Descanso, who lives with a terrible secret: something unspeakable happened to her in Guatemala five years ago, and nearly destroyed her life. When she kills a madman in self-defense, the secrets she's been keeping come back to haunt her – and her young daughter is kidnapped, with the kidnapper giving Grace 24 hours to follow a deadly scavenger hunt.





Stuart Woods signs SANTA FE DEAD (Putnam, $25.95).




3:00 p.m.

Robert Crais signs THE WATCHMAN (Simon & Schuster, $25.95). Joe Pike has a special assignment as protector of a young woman who is being hunted.

Michelle Gagnon signs THE TUNNELS (Mira mass market paperback, $6.99). Bobby's August favorite is a first novel introducing FBI Special Agent Kelly Stone and her partner, Roger Morrow. They're investigating the apparent ritual murders of two female college students, whose bodies are found marked with Norse symbols in an old campus tunnel system. As more students are killed – and one disappears – Kelly and Roger race against the murderer.

Leslie Klinger signs THE NEW ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE NOVELS (W.W. Norton, $59.95)
T. Jefferson Parker signs L. A. OUTLAWS (Dutton, $25.95). "Allison Murietta" is a modern-day Robin Hood who steals from the wealthy, donates much of her take to charity – and invites the media along for the ride. It's all fun and games until a heist ends with ten dead gangsters and half a million in diamonds missing. Sheriff's Deputy Charlie Hood investigates the case, taking a particular interest in an eyewitness named Suzanne Jones – who has secrets of her own.



April Smith signs JUDAS HORSE (Knopf, $23.95). FBI Agent Ana Grey learns that a group of radical animal-rights activists has assassinated one of her colleagues. Ana goes undercover to infiltrate a group that calls itself Free Animals Now, led by an unstable, charismatic leader who's planning one final, monstrous act of terrorism.

Domenic Stansberry signs THE ANCIENT RAIN (St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95)




4:00 p.m.

Mark Coggins signs RUNOFF (Bleak House hardcover, $24.95; trade paperback, $14.95). Scott's November favorite finds San Francisco PI August Riordan mixing it up with anarchists and Chinatown gangs, and even facing a murder rap after agreeing to investigate a case of election fraud.

Ake Edwardson signs FROZEN TRACKS (Viking, $25.95). The third mystery to feature Detective Chief Inspector Erik Winter finds the Swedish policeman investigating a series of near-deadly beatings on the streets of Gothenburg, with an unusual weapon. The beatings may be tied to reports of a strange man offering candy to children, leading to the discovery of a badly-beaten child in the woods, and a kidnapping.





Bill Fitzhugh signs THE ADVENTURES OF SLIM & HOWDY (Center Street, $22.99) Bill Fitzhugh co-wrote this book with country music stars Kix Brooks & Ronnie Dunn, and every book includes an exclusive Brooks & Dunn CD. Slim and Howdy are musicians on the road who can't stay out of trouble; when their friend and boss Jodie Lee disappears, they go looking.






Tana French signs IN THE WOODS (Viking, $24.95). This Edgar-nominated debut introduces Irish Detective Rob Ryan and his partner, Cassie Maddox, who are investigating the murder of a 12-year-old girl at an archeological dig. The murder bears uncomfortable resemblance to the unsolved disappearance of two girls 20 year earlier – girls who happened to be two of Detective Ryan's closest friends.

Susan Kandel signs CHRISTIETOWN (Harper trade paperback, $13.95). Cece Caruso's directing a Miss Marple whodunit as part of the opening gala for Christietown, a planned community on the edge of the Mojave Desert that promises to be a "Cotswaldesque cozyland." Things turn grim when Cece's leading lady disappears, later to be found murdered. Cece and her fiance, LAPD detective Peter Gambino, can't help getting involved in the investigation.

Tim Maleeny signs BEATING THE BABUSHKA (Midnight Ink trade paperback original, $14.95), Cape Weathers investigates the apparent suicide of a movie producer who jumped – or was pushed – from the Golden Gate Bridge. Weathers and his deadly friend Sally Mei find some accounting irregularities that lead to threats on their own lives before they figure out what's going on.

Eric Stone signs GRAVE IMPORTS (Bleak House Books trade hardcover, $24.95; trade paperback, simultaneous release, $14.95).




5:00 p.m.

James Ellroy signs whatever he wants to sign at his only Festival appearance.