The Case of the Vanishing Boy: A Spade/Paladin Conundrum, Book 1 (Unabridged‪)‬

Secret Master of Fandom and Private Detective Spade gets a strange request: a tiny woman with pointed ears asks him to help her with a case at FleshCon, a California science fiction convention. The tiny woman turns out to be the infamous Paladin, whom Spade thought was only a rumor. Paladin needs help finding a teenage boy whom she says vanishes whenever she approaches him.

Spade knows that disappearing teenagers only live in (ahem) science fiction novels, so he's going to do everything he can to find the missing boy-and to impress the impressive Paladin.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch's short mystery fiction has won the Ellery Queen Readers' Choice Award twice, and has been nominated for the Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony Awards. Her mystery novels appear under the names Kris Nelscott and Kris Rusch. For more information on her work, go to kristinekathrynrusch.com.