The author of Final Approach, last year’s winner for the Best Houston Book in the Houston Press Best of Houston® awards, Rachel Brady has just released Dead Lift. A sequel to Final Approach, Dead Lift once again sees investigator Emily Locke delving into the underbelly of Texas society. The client she’s working for is accused of murdering a plastic surgeon, and Emily isn’t convinced the woman is innocent. Details change with every retelling of her story, and there are other red flags, but for some reason, Emily finds herself wanting to believe in the woman. “This book asks the question, if a person makes bad choices, does that make them a bad person?” says Brady. “There’s good in everybody, there’s bad in everybody, so who gets to decide who’s a good person and who’s a bad person?

“For this book, I was really interested in challenging one person’s perception of another. You really only know somebody as much as they let you know them. With our friends, we can overlook some things. We can say, ‘Well, I like you enough even though you have some flaws.’ But in a murder mystery, you’re talking about the possibility that this person killed someone, and you can’t overlook that. So, how much do you trust them? How much do you trust yourself?” Today’s book signing and discussion is the official launch for Dead Lift. 4:30 p.m. Murder by the Book, 2342 Bissonnet. For information, call 713-524-8597 or visit www.murderbooks.com. Free.

Sat., Dec. 4, 4:30 p.m., 2010

This article appears in Dec 2-8, 2010.