The Lady Upstairs

May 1, 2020
An intricate blackmail scheme goes off the rails in Sutton's sizzling debut. When Jo met a woman named Lou three years ago, she was drowning in heartbreak and self-loathing. Her boyfriend (and co-worker) had not only dumped her, but he'd also gotten her fired. Lou showed Jo a way to make him pay and reclaim her life, and Jo has never looked back. Now Jo is running her own jobs for the Lady Upstairs' Staffing Agency, a front for elaborate sexual blackmail schemes designed to entrap some of the wealthiest, and most morally bankrupt, men in Los Angeles. Only Lou knows who the mysterious Lady Upstairs actually is, but as long as the cash keeps flowing, Jo tries not to sweat the small stuff. When a grift goes wrong, leaving Jo with no incriminating photos or video to force her mark's hand, she does start sweating it, because she owes money to the Lady Upstairs, and 11 large just went down the drain. To recoup that cash before the Lady resorts to distasteful collection tactics, Jo prepares to run a con on one of the biggest fish in the city. In Sutton's sweltering LA, where grit and glamour entwine, nothing is free and life is cheap, so a few dirty cops, lots of double dealing, and maybe a little murder are only to be expected. Narrator Jo is a tough cookie, making her flashes of vulnerability, mostly glimpsed in her scenes with Lou, even more poignant. Sutton's assured and moody prose often channels the best classic LA noir, but this deliciously tawdry and twisty tale is entirely her own. Readers who savor crime stories featuring complex, unapologetic women will be hooked. A scorching, knockout noir from an author to watch.

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August 17, 2020
Jo, the femme fatale narrator of Sutton’s intriguing if flawed debut, is in debt to her employer, the shadowy operator of the Lady Upstairs’ Staffing Agency, which is a front for a lucrative blackmail operation that targets rich, despicable, adulterous men. Colleagues Robert Jackal, her sometime paramour, and Lou, her beguiling female lover, lend support as Jo strives to work off her debt. Alas, Jo’s plans unravel with fatal results when a naive recruit of hers fails to entrap a sleazy Hollywood movie producer, and Jo winds up under investigation by the LAPD. Worried that the Lady Upstairs might try to eliminate her, Jo hatches a plot to entrap a mayoral candidate and use the money to escape the Lady forever. But her confidence is misplaced, and nothing is quite as it seems. Though the plot stalls midway through and splutters to a predictable conclusion, Sutton’s stylish, edgy prose and strong female characters will delight fans of American noir. Hopefully, Jo will be back soon. Agent: Sharon Pelletier, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.

September 1, 2020
On the surface, Jo is untouchable. She makes her living by manipulating and blackmailing the worst men in Los Angeles, but, though the fierce, dangerous satisfaction she gets from the job is still there, she's falling apart underneath. She's deep in debt to her boss, a woman she's never met and knows only as the Lady Upstairs, and she's been taking higher-stakes jobs to pay off what she owes. But the riskier the jobs she takes, the sloppier Jo gets. When a job goes badly wrong, Jo, with the clock running out, sets her eyes on her biggest mark yet?behind the Lady's back. And as the people she thought were allies turn out to have secrets of their own, Jo is troubled to find herself relying on the most unreliable person of all: herself. Gritty and devious, this debut thriller burrows into the idea of the revenge fantasy, and plot twists come so quickly that readers will be left breathless. A vicious, noir-soaked look at one way women choose to seize power in this world.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)