Welcome.

 

I'm happy to say the first four novels in the Willa Jansson series and the first four in the Laura Di Palma series are now ebooks. An electronic edition of my latest short story, "The Children," published last year by Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, is available as well. (It will also be on EQMM's web site this summer for as long as the September/October print edition is on the stands. That issue will feature the story's sequel, Champawat, a novella about Anarchists and Democrats in 1919.) Below, you'll find links to these in the Kindle, Nook, and iTunes ebookstores. Next month, I'll add links to my upcoming e-anthology, The Children and Other Stories.

 

The novels are all revised editions, a little different than the print versions from Bantam, Ballantine, Simon & Schuster and Pocket. The plots are the same but details and covers are new. (The earliest books are the most changed.) You'll see links to previews of each ebook here, if you'd like to read the opening chapters. There's also a link to the first pages of "The Children."

 

Until the anthology is ready, I'll keep a few short stories online here. "Dead Drunk," winner of a Shamus Award, originally appeared in Guilty As Charged, edited by Scott Turow. It was reprinted in The Year's Twenty-five Finest Crime and Mystery Stories, edited by Joan Hess, A Century of Noir, edited by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins, and The Shamus Winners, Volume II: 1996 - 2009, edited by Robert J. Randisi. The second story, "Do Not Resuscitate," was first printed in Carolyn Hart's Crimes of the Heart. The third, "The River Mouth," was originally in Tony Hillerman's The Mysterious West and was reprinted in A Moment on the Edge: 100 Years of Crime Stories by Women, edited by Elizabeth George.

 

You can friend me on Facebook now, too, and follow me on Twitter.  

 

Best wishes,

 

Lia

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are the links I mentioned, with books arranged from latest to earliest within each series. (They can be read out of order if you prefer, none has whodunit spoilers.) They are available for $3.99 for Nook and Kindle e-readers (or computers with the free Kindle app or Nook app), for iPhones and iPads at the iTunes store, and for other mobile devices and computers at the Google Store. The short story "The Children" is in those e-bookstores for $.99.

 

 

 

"The Children" (a short story) is available at Amazon's Kindle Store, the iTunes Store, and Barnes & Noble's Nook Store.

At the height of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, a young nanny is put out on the street to die so she won't infect the children. "The Children" was the opening story in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine's Seventieth Anniversary Issue, September/October 2011.

 

 

 

Laura Di Palma Novels (latest to earliest):

 

 

 

Face Value is available in Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes & Noble's Nook Store, and Apple's iTunes Store.

 USA Today calls it "Absorbing," and says, "Multiple murders and delightfully complex characters help carry a plot that moves from a striptease bar to the guru's mysterious island retreat…A fine, intelligent story."

The followers of San Francisco quantum physicist and guru "Brother Mike" thought they were exploring their sexuality and spirituality when he guided them through videotaped group encounters. They didn't know the tapes would end up in the XXX sections of their video stores. Now one former devotee, an old friend of lawyer Laura Di Palma, has come to her new office for advice. Laura turns for help to her former partner, detective Sandy Arkelett. They haven't spoken since a falling out months ago. But as the case takes them from banks to porn parlors to a private fantasy island, Laura finds that new secrets have a way of getting old lovers killed.

 

 

 

A Hard Bargain is available at Apple's iTunes Store, Amazon's Kindle Store, and the Nook Store.

 Kirkus Reviews calls it a welcome respite from the mystery-by-formula crowd," and Publishers Weekly says it "skillfully weaves Laura's dissatisfaction with her own circumstances into the investigation…taking a thought-provoking look at the dangers in relationships that grow too close."

Karen McGuin survived her first grisly suicide attempt. Then her husband started putting a loaded gun in front of her every day—to urge her to choose life, he said. But Karen pulled the trigger instead, and now her family wants him arrested for murder. When they hire a San Francisco law firm to make the case to their small-town D.A., detective Sandy Arkelett treks north to investigate. But what he really wants is to lure his one-time lover, lawyer Laura Di Palma, out of a hard bargain with her new partner.

 

The Good Fight is available at the iTunes store, the Kindle store, and the Nook store.

The Daily News called the book "compelling," saying, "Matera writes with passion about debts to old lovers and old causes." The Baltimore Sun  described it as "Extraordinary, thought-provoking," and John Leonard, of NPR's "Fresh Air," called it "Sharply written, brilliantly observed."

Lawyer Laura Di Palma has been warned: she'll be fired if she insists on defending a controversial new client. Famed activist Dan Crosetti is accused of shooting his best friend, who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent. Laura was with Crosetti years ago when a military truck ran over protesters blocking its path. He lost his legs that day, and Laura won't see him lose his freedom, too. But if she can't reconcile the person she used to be with the lawyer she's become, she risks everything she's worked for and everyone she loves.

 

 

 

The Smart Money is available at Amazon's Kindle Store, Apple's iTunes Store, and Barnes & Noble's Nook Store.

This book introduces San Francisco litigator Laura Di Palma, praised by The New York Times as "one of the smartest, most open-minded sleuths in the lawyering trade." Booklist says, "Di Palma certainly belongs in the same league as Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone and Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawki when it comes to brains, determination, and guts."

Laura got more than her share of death threats and bad publicity after winning acquittal for the killer of two U.S. Senators. But she's not back in her home town to hide, she's back for vengeance. Years ago, her marriage ended when she walked in on her high school sweetheart with another woman. She tried to rebound with that woman's husband but he left Laura packed and waiting. Now, after fourteen years, Laura's learned he died that night. She's certain her ex-husband murdered him. And she has the money and fame these days to spotlight the old crime. But in a town run by her uncle the mayor, Laura's ex isn't the only one who'll strike back hard to keep a secret.

 

 

 

 

Willa Jansson Novels (from latest to earliest):

 

 

 

Prior Convictions is available in the iTunes Store, Amazon's Kindle Store, and Barnes & Noble's Nook Store.

It was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was also nominated for the mystery genre's top prizes, the Edgar Allan Poe Award and the Anthony Award. Publishers Weekly said, "Readers will be shaken by Matera's rapier-sharp dissection of personal relationships and radical ideologies," and Newsday called it "gutsy, grown-up crime-writing from one of the best practitioners around."

Lawyer Willa Jansson spent the last year picking up the pieces after an epic hit to her résumé. Since leaving her beloved San Francisco, she's been smothered in bankruptcy codes, mourning a love life that's lying somewhere with a stake in its heart. She should be glad to be back home. But her family, her ex, and her new employer seem bent on reviving the ugliest trauma of her life. And unless she can figure out why, she may end up dying for a cause she no longer believes in.

 

 

 

Hidden Agenda is available in the Kindle Store, the Nook Store , and the iTunes Store.

The Houston Chronicle said, "Willa's cases always top the fun-to-read list." and Newsday called Willa "an unusually deep and complex character for crime fiction--tough-minded, sexual, vulnerable, lonely, morally alive."

Willa Jansson's new job search finds her obsessed with one question: Who in the world is Bud Hopper? Why would a member of the Republican administration pull strings on behalf of a lawyer who spent the last two years in a firm of notorious San Francisco liberals? Willa's afraid she has her answer when her new boss is killed in exactly the same way as her last. But if the elusive Bud Hopper is out to frame her, who'll take her word over a friend of the President's?

 

 

 

A Radical Departure is available in the Kindle Store, the iTunes Store, and the Nook Store.

It was nominated for the mystery genre's two top prizes, the Edgar Allan Poe Award and the Anthony Award. The San José Mercury News said it has "Almost everything a good mystery needs...a complex plot, social commentary, loads of atmosphere and a cast of unusual characters...The reader wants to hang out with Jansson and see more of her clear-eyed view of the world."

Willa Jansson has graduated from law school and taken the job of her left-wing dreams. She is working for the renowned firm of an old family friend, famous activist Julian Warneke. These days, the good liberals in Warneke's firm seem more interested in social climbing than social justice. But when Julian is murdered at a pricey working lunch, a Who's Who of radicals—including Willa's mother—join Willa on San Francisco Homicide's list of suspects.

 

 

 

Where Lawyers Fear To Tread is available at Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes & Noble's Nook Store, and Apple's iTunes Store.

This book introduces lawyer Willa Jansson, described by the New York Times as "One of the most articulate and surely the wittiest of women sleuths at large in the genre."

All Willa has to do is finish her last year of law school in San Francisco's Tenderloin district, and she'll snag the job of her idealistic dreams. The lawyer who routinely keeps Willa's social activist parents out of prison—or at least joins them on their jailhouse soapbox—asks only that she graduate with honors and on law review. But when the review's two top editors are murdered, Willa's not exactly thrilled to be third in line for editor-in-chief.

 Find out why "Fresh Air's" John Leonard said, "I'm in love with Willa!"