"KING IS A DEFT AND LITERATE WRITER WHOSE WORK NEVER FAILS TO PLEASE....A SUPERIOR NOVEL."

-- The San Diego Union-Tribune

"A DENSE AND SUSPENSEFUL TALE. MEMORABLE."

-- Publishers Weekly

"A RICHLY FEMINIST BOOK IN WHICH KING DEMONSTRATES AGAIN HER REMARKABLE SKILLS IN SINKING THE READER INTO A SPECIAL CULTURE/COMMUNITY WHERE HER MANY-LAYERED STORIES UNFOLD."

-- Booknews from The Poisoned Pen

  Kate and her partner, AI Hawkin, are called to a scene of carefully executed murder: the victim is a muscular man,handcuffed and strangled, a stun gun’s faint burn on his chest and candy in his pocket. The likeliest person to want him dead, his often-abused wife, is meek and frail--and has an airtight alibi. Kate and AI are stumped, until a second body turns up--also zapped, cuffed, and strangled...and carrying a candy bar. This victim: a convicted rapist.As newspaper headlines speculate about vendetta killings, a third death draws Kate and AI into a network of pitiless destruction that reaches far beyond San Francisco, a modern-style hit list with shudderingly primal roots.