The explosive start to the Nikki Griffin series. If you devoured The Housemaid and love watching a smart, underestimated woman turn the tables, meet your next obsession. By day, Nikki Griffin runs a quiet bookshop in California. There's a sleepy shop cat, loyal customers, and shelves stacked with stories about other people's secrets. By night, she hunts men who hurt women. Nikki is a private investigator with a strict moral code and a talent for making dangerous men underestimate her ? right up until they realise their mistake. She drinks her whiskey neat, rides a motorcycle, and knows exactly how to win a fight. When a powerful CEO hires her to follow a young woman accused of selling company secrets, it seems like routine surveillance. But nothing about this job is what it appears. The woman she's tailing is frightened. The CEO is hiding something. And when a body turns up, Nikki understands too late that she's stepped into a trap. Now she's no longer just watching the shadows ? she's in them. As the lies unravel and the danger closes in, Nikki must decide how far she's willing to go for justice. Because in this world, the real monsters wear expensive suits and charming smiles. Dark, razor-sharp and packed with tension, Save Me from Dangerous Men is perfect for readers who crave:

• morally complex female leads
• powerful men with secrets
• twisty investigations where nothing is what it seems
• the delicious satisfaction of watching a predator become prey

S.A. Lelchuk holds a master's degree from Dartmouth College, and lives in Berkeley, California.

'Action-packed and razor sharp' LEE CHILD

This SUNDAY TIMES CRIME CLUB STAR PICK is for fans of gritty, darkly funny thrillers like Killing Eve and anyone who loves Kimberley Chambers, Jessie Keane, Marnie Riches, Emma Tallon or Kerry Barnes.

*
Bookseller by day. Bad ass by night.

Nikki Griffin owns a bookshop in California that has a resident cat, Bartleby. She drinks neat Jameson and rides an Aprilia motorcycle. She's a Private Investigator who spends her days talking about books and her nights fighting for women - and she could beat you in a fight, blindfolded.

Nikki is the hero you've been waiting for.

When she's hired to tail a woman accused of selling company secrets by the CEO, she thinks it will be just another job. By the time she realises that something is off, it's already too late - a body has been found. Suddenly, Nikki is pulled into a race to find answers before somebody finds her.

The bad guys may have started this - but Nikki is going to finish it.

*** Praise for SAVE ME FROM DANGEROUS MEN ***

'When she's not advising customers on reading choices in her secondhand bookshop in un-gentrified Oakland, California, Nikki enjoys issuing righteous street justice, whether it be nailing a cheating husband bang to rights or persuading an abusive boyfriend to back off - and boy, is she persuasive. Hired to investigate an employee suspected of selling a firm's tech secrets, she gets drawn into a deeper mystery and even deeper danger. Lucky for her, and us, she's smart as paint and brave as a lioness' Sunday Times Crime Club (starred review)

'Pulses with daring and risk. Nikki Griffin, bookseller by day and private investigator by night, takes on men who hurt women and makes them sorry. Calm, complex, lethal, and fascinating, she's the revenge fantasy you want right now' Taylor Stevens, New York Times bestselling author of Liars' Paradox and The Informationist

'Action-packed and razor sharp - Jack Reacher would love Nikki Griffin' Lee Child

'Save Me from Dangerous Men is one of those rare thrillers that draws you in so relentlessly that you find yourself getting kicked out of bed and reading all night on the sofa. If you're a fan of Jack Reacher or Lisbeth Salander, you are gonna love Nikki Griffin. This is an outstanding debut novel to what promises to be an exceptional series. Highly, highly recommended' Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of the acclaimed Pendergast series

'Lelchuk has created a fabulously compelling central protagonist in Nikki Griffin, a psychologically disturbed woman with her heart in the right place'

'One of my most favourite things about this novel is the literary allusions and references littered throughout the narrative'

'Wonderfully entertaining'