Description:

When Laurence Fife was murdered, few mourned his passing. A prominent divorce attorney with a reputation for single-minded ruthlessness on behalf of his clients, Fife was also rumored to be a dedicated philanderer. Plenty of people in the picturesque southern California town of Santa Teresa had a reason to want him dead. Including, thought the cops, his young and beautiful wife, Nikki. With motive, access, and opportunity, Nikki was their number-one suspect. The jury thought so, too.

Eight years later and out on parole, Niki Fife hires Kinsey Millhone to find out who really killed her late husband.

A trail that is eight years cold. A trail that reaches out to enfold a bitter, wealthy, and foul-mouthed old woman and a young boy, born deaf, whose memory cannot be trusted. A trail that leads to a lawyer defensively loyal to a dead partner--and disarmingly attractive to Millhone; to an ex-wife, brave, lucid, lovely--and still angry over Fife's betrayal of her; to a not-so-young secretary with too high a salary for too few skills--and too many debts left owing: The trail twists to include them all, with Millhone following every turn until it finally twists back on itself and she finds herself face-to-face with a killer cunning enough to get away with murder.

Review

"Kinsey Millhone is a female Sam Spade; a thorough professional, a loner, clear-headed and unsentimental."--Lucille Kallen

"Kinsey Millhone is an entirely fresh and original character, and I feel sure that the series will go all through the alphabet."--Patricia Moyes

From the Publisher

Laurence Fife was a slick divorce lawyer and slippery ladies' man. Until someone killed him. The jury believed that it was his pretty young wife Nikki, so they sent her to prison for eight years. Now, Nikki's out on parole and Kinsey Miihone's in for trouble. Nikki hires Kinsey to discover who really killed her husband. But the trail is eight years cold, and at the end is a chilling twist even Kinsey doesn't suspect -- a second eight-year-old murder and a brand new corpse.