Excerpt from Nine Days by Minerva Koenig, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Again with the tone. I surveyed the backyard to give my temper time to settle. Jesse Reed was leaning against a small red pickup, talking urgently into a cell phone.

"Let's hear your backstory," the Amazon said, sounding dissatisfied. My lack of lip seemed to have thrown her off her game. Maybe she spent a lot of time with people who don't learn from their mistakes.

"I worked for your cousin Etta at her place in Roxbury," I recited, the words coming off my tongue like I'd been saying them all my life. "My marriage broke up last year, and you invited me down here to make a fresh start."

"What happened?"

I scowled at her, and she made a gesture with one hand. "I mean, what are you supposed to tell people happened?"

"Fuck if I know," I said. "I guess he ran off to Rio with his secretary or something."

"Pick a story and stick to it," she said, getting up to answer the whistling kettle. "People will ask you that—you'd be surprised."

Not as surprised as they'll be when I tell them to mind their own damned business, I thought, watching the Amazon pour. Her long hands were delicate on the kettle's porcelain handle, and there was something softly susceptible about the shape of her rounded arm, the angle of her head. I suddenly realized that she was pretty. You didn't notice it at first, with her professional gristle in the way.

"So how'd you win the federal babysitting lottery?" I asked her. "The locals don't give you enough business?"

"They can't keep an inspector down here," she said, watching the hot water sink through the coffee filter. "These kids from Washington show up thinking it's gonna be cowboys and Indians. They don't stay long."

"Why didn't they send me someplace with an active inspector?"

"You'll have to ask them, but I'm guessing it's at least partially because of my zero-tolerance policy for 'white power' crap in my jurisdiction." She brought the pot over to the table. "I'm kind of lame on some things, I admit it, but racist gangs?" She shook her head. "Homey, as they used to say, don't play that."

My radar homed in on her vehemence, and I wondered if there were something personal behind it. She didn't look like she had any color in her blood, but neither do I. "Why's that?"

She got a couple of heavy white mugs out of the cabinet, ignoring my question. "Your interview's at one, with Hector Guerra. In case the name doesn't make it obvious, he owns the place."

"You don't give a hell of a lot away for free, do you?"

She spooned a couple of sugars into her coffee and sat down, stirring it. She didn't say anything. It was starting to piss me off.

"Seriously," I said, "do I have to take this job?"

Her doe-lashed eyes flashed up at me, but she kept quiet. I gave her points for waiting out her temper this time.

"There's not a lot of work around here," she said when she finally spoke. Her voice was calm and even. "Hector's doing me a favor, giving you dibs on this bartending gig. I'm not gonna be very happy if you jerk him around."

"What if I want to do something for a living that I'm actually qualified for?"

"Like what, dealing guns and drugs?" A little crack in the calm and even.

I frowned at her. "We never dealt drugs."

"They're two ends of the same stick," she snapped. "You deal in one, you deal in the other."

I shut up and pulled my coffee over, just for something to do while she got a grip. A couple of minutes without talking, then she said, "Look, you helped your husband and father-in-law sell those black market pieces, and you laundered the profits through your construction books. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence in somebody responsible for the public safety." She tapped the Formica table with the tip of her index finger. Her nails were tastefully manicured, with a subtle pink polish. "You need to prove to me that you can be a law-abiding, responsible citizen. Holding down this job for a while is an easy first step."

Excerpted from Nine Days by Minerva Koenig. Copyright © 2014 by Minerva Koenig. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Minotaur. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.