Beverley Danziger looked into an expensive, carefully wrapped package from a good but conservative shop. Only her compulsive chatter hinted at nervousness beneath her cool surface. There was an absent sister. A will to be settled--a matter of only a few thousand dollars. And she didn't seem like someone longing for a family reunion. Business was slow and she needed to pay bills, so Millhone took what looked like a routine case. It turned tricky when...

Floral Beach wasn't much of a town: six streets long and three deep, its only notable feature a strip of sand fronting the Pacific. It was on that sandy beach seventeen years ago that the strangled body of Jean Timberlake had been found. The people of Floral Beach didn't pay a whole lot of mind to past history, especially when Bailey Fowler, the self-confessed killer, had been properly processed and convicted. They weren't even unduly concerned when,...

It started with the murder of Kinsey Millhone's sometime drinking buddy, an insurance claims adjuster. But before long Kinsey stumbles onto a massive insurance scam. Going undercover as a wisecracking vamp, Millhone descends into the Los Angeles nether world of machismo and gang hideouts. Her companion, terrified at having crossed the violent crook Raymond Maldonado, is Bibianna Diaz - no Girl Scout herself.