Laura Resnick - Esther Diamond Series

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Disappearing Nightly (Esther Diamond #1)
I'm not a heroine -- I just play one.

Also psychotics, vamps, orphans, hookers, housewives and -- on one memorable occasion -- a singing rutabaga. It was never my ambition to utilize my extensive dramatic training by playing a musical vegetable. However, as my agent is fond of pointing out, there are more actors in New York than there are people in most other cities. Translation: Beggars can't be choosers.

This explains how I wound up painting my body green and prancing around stage half-naked the night Golly Gee, the female lead in the off-broadway show "Sorcerer!" disappeared into thin air. Literally.

Now other performers are also vanishing, and a mysterious stranger is warning me: There is evil among us. But the producers want me to take over Golly's part.

Looks like I'm going to need a little magical help if I want to keep my starring role . . .

Doppelgangster (Esther Diamond #2)
"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

Unsympathetic Magic (Esther Diamond #3)
Overdressed zombies, vicious gargoyles, a severed hand... and the night is still young!

Acting jobs don't just grow on fire escapes… so struggling actress Esther Diamond is outraged when her guest role as a hooker on The Dirty Thirty, a controversial TV drama, is jeopardized by zombies, angry spirits, and a voodoo curse.

Meanwhile, the talented teens whom Esther is coaching at a Harlem cultural center are also being attacked by the sinister supernatural power that's spreading through Manhattan. And Esther's love life goes from bad to worse when her bed bursts into deadly mystical flames while her would-be lover, Detective Connor Lopez, is trying to get her into it!

Since the show must go on (and the rent must be paid), Esther boldly helps her friend Dr. Maximillian Zadok, a 350-year-old sorcerer whose day job is protecting New York City from Evil, combat the supernatural forces at work in Harlem during a sweltering summer heat wave. But will Esther's courage lead her to becoming a human sacrifice on the altar of Evil's voracious appetite?

Vamparazzi (Esther Diamond #4)
Playing a scantily clad vampire victim in an off-Broadway play, struggling actress Esther Diamond now may be the target of someone who claims to be a genuine bloodsucker...

Polterheist (Esther Diamond #5)
Struggling actress Esther Diamond's latest Manhattan misadventure leads her into the twisted realm of greedy heirs battling over a retail empire, a series of heists pulled off by invisible thieves, and inanimate objects that grow fangs and fly through the air to attack a poor actress who's just trying to earn enough money to pay her rent.

Realizing that magical mayhem is afoot, Esther joins forces with her pal Max, a 350 year old sorcerer whose day job is protecting the Big Apple from Evil. Together they investigate the terrifying manifestations at Fenster & Co., where Esther is working overtime as an underdressed elf.

Meanwhile, Esther's tumultuous almost-romance with NYPD's Detective Connor Lopez runs hot and cold and increasingly strange as he investigates the perplexing heists at Fenster's. Semi-retired hit man Lucky Battistuzzi is also nosing around, since the mob deeply resents being implicated in these thefts which they didn't commit—well, not this time, anyhow.

As an ancient Evil prepares to unleash hell on a night when darkness prevails and dimensional barriers crumble, Esther Diamond battles to save her friends from deadly peril, protect her city from demonic disaster, and collect her paycheck in time to make rent.

The Misfortune Cookie (Esther Diamond #6)
Esther Diamond's year gets off to a rocky start when NYPD's Detective Connor Lopez, who slept with her and then didn't call, shuts down her current place of employment and gets her arrested. Once she's out of handcuffs, and with no paying work on the frigid horizon, Esther takes a small role in a grad student's film project in Chinatown—where her friend semi-retired hit man Lucky Battistuzzi, who escaped Lopez's sweep at the Little Italy restaurant where Esther works between acting jobs, is hiding out in a Chinese-Italian mortuary.

Esther and Lucky soon realize that something strange is going on in Chinatown, where beautifully handcrafted fortune cookies are inflicting deadly mystical curses on the hapless victims who receive them as gifts—and before long, Esther learns that Detective Lopez is one of the recipients. As preparations for Chinese New Year heat up in the ice-covered neighborhood, when the streets will be filled with costumed lion dancers, firecrackers, and dense crowds, Esther and Lucky summon the help of their friend Max, a semi-immortal mage and semi-solvent bookseller, to help them save Chinatown and Lopez (with whom Esther is not on speaking terms) from a mystical murderer of maniacal menace.