"In Laura Resnick's Doppelgangster , the New York actress is 'resting' between roles by working as a singing waitress at a Manhattan mob restaurant because wiseguys tip well. Then duplicated gangsters appear, bullets start flying, and it's up to Esther and her friend Max the Magician to fight Evil by stopping the gang war before it starts killing the wrong people. And if she has time, maybe Esther can actually keep a hot date with her hunky detective friend Lopez, who doesn't believe in magic. Yet. Unplug the phone and settle down for a fast and funny read." — New York Times bestselling author Mary Jo Putney Doppelgangster is the exciting second novel of the Esther Diamond series. "Fans of Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series will appreciate this series' lively heroine and the appealing combination of humor, mystery, and romance. " — Library Journal (starred review) “Gleeful, clever... [Resnick] spins a witty, fast-paced mystery around her convincingly self-absorbed chorus-girl heroine." — Publishers Weekly "An amusing urban fantasy starring a wonderful heroine surrounded by a horde of eccentrics, one straight cop, and one interfering matchmaking mom. The jocular story line is filled with a fast-paced frenzy from the first magical mugging until the last as Esther proves once again to be a reader's best friend with her misadventures in Manhattan mystical mayhem." —Midwest Book Review " Dopplegangster is a joy from start to finish , with a sexy hero, a smart heroine (Does Laura Resnick write any other kind?), a fascinating plot, and a troop of supporting characters both lovable and otherwise. It's a wonderful blend of comedy and surprising suspense. If you haven't met Esther Diamond yet, then you're missing out on a lot of fun." —Linda Howard, New York Times Bestselling author Laura Resnick  was born in Chicago, and when she was a teenager her family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. Growing up in a family of writers, daughter of SF writer Mike Resnick, she never thought she would end up in a writing career, herself. A  cum laude   graduate of Georgetown University, where she studied languages and linguistics. Laura can speak French and Italian. After college, she moved overseas for a few years, where she studed acting at London Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Laura Resnick can be found at sff.net/people/laresnick/. "You and me, honey, we should go out sometime." "I'm flattered." I placed the dinner check on the table and hoped my answer wouldn't affect the size of my tip. "But I can't." Chubby Charlie Chiccante, a 300-pound capo in the Gambello family, squinted at me as he reached for his wallet. "I'll show you a good time," he promised. "Let me tell you something. In the sack, I'm fuckin' spectacular. Ask anyone." I said loudly over my shoulder to Lucky Battistuzzi, who ate here at Bella Stella almost every night, "Lucky, is Charlie spectacular in bed?" Lucky nodded his grizzled head. "The earth moved for me." Four male acquaintances of Charlie's sitting at a nearby table heard this and guffawed. A predictable round of jokes ensued. I knew from staff gossip that those four guys weren't Gambellos, they were soldiers in the Buonarotti family. It would be exaggerating to say the Buonarottis were on cordial terms with the Gambellos, but there was enough absence of animosity between the families that Buonarotti wiseguys could dine at Bella Stella, a stronghold of the Gambellos, without bloodshed. Well, as long as they didn't irritate any Gambello soldiers. Whereas Corvino wiseguys knew better than to come near Stella's. As Lopez had pointed out to me, there was a lot of bad blood between those two families. Chubby Charlie rolled his small eyes at the crude jokes the Buonarottis were making, then pulled a red silk handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his suit and patted his shiny face with it. Like Lucky, he was a regular at Stella's. And Charlie, who was in his late fifties, was notorious among the staff; he always ate two full entrees, sweated while he ate, and propositioned his waitress. Whether Charlie tipped well depended on whether he liked your voice. He always wanted a song with his dinner. If he enjoyed the performance, he left a generous tip. If he didn't, he stiffed you. And no server at Stella's chose to argue about this with a man who was rumored to have killed at least seven people (mostly members of the Corvino crime family). Tonight, he had demanded to be seated in my section, and he'd requested a rendition of That's Amore . As always, I'd sung to the accompaniment of our accordion-playing bartender. Now, as Charlie stuffed his red handkerchief back into his breast pocket, he said to me, "So why won't you go out with me? You got a fuckin' boyfriend?" Lucky put down the newspaper he'd been reading after finishing his dinner and said to Charlie, "Hey, watch your language, paesano . You're speaking to a lady." I smiled at him. Alberto "Lucky Bastard" Battistuzzi