Calling upon his considerable novelistic skills, Loren D. Estleman exposes the black heart of a seemingly stable, well-run city suddenly pitched into violence and chaos. A delicate balance of forces-greed and corruption, ambition and desire-run out of control in the wake of a serial killer's grisly rampage. A power struggle-between a police chief who has looked the other way for too long, a Mafia boss who holds the city's vices in his powerful grasp,...

The year is 1880, the place San Francisco. Intelligent, outspoken Sarah Woolson is a young woman with a goal and the fortitude to achieve it. She has always dreamed of becoming a lawyer. The trouble is, everyone believes women belong in the home,that it is not only unnatural, but against God's will for them to seek a career. When Sarah finagles an interview with one of the city's most prestigious law firms, no one thinks she has a prayer of being...

Bail enforcement officer Jack Keller is doing a skip trace on a young woman from the right side of the tracks who somehow got involved with the wrong kind of man. But Laurel Marks's history doesn't matter to Jack she's wanted on a parole violation, and his paycheck depends on tracking her down.Meanwhile, Keller's girlfriend, sheriff's deputy Marie Jones, is called to the scene of a grisly murder a gas station owner has been shot point-blank in the...