Veronica "Ronnie" Landonwood is phoning from Chicago to
ask Claire for help in tracking down a blackmailer who
threatens to expose her past. Ronnie had been in jail for
murder but has rehabilitated herself into a prestigious
scientist with a shot at a Nobel Prize - unless her sordid
past hits the tabloids. Now she wants Claire to go back to
Acapulco, where, as a teenager, she killed a famous
Hollywood producer who tried to rape her. This eerie call
gives Claire some uneasy feelings about where this odyssey
might lead. Taking her sixteen-year-old daughter Caron
along on the trip ranks as one of her less quick-witted
Ideas... especially since both mother and daughter are
likely to be confronting danger and/or jail. For some
mysterious person in Acapulco, Claire's investigation
constitutes a clear and present threat. And the winding
road past is leading her toward a truth about the murder
night that may proved to be more sinister than a teenaged
Ronnie's desperate act of violence. In fact, its
reverberations are still being felt - as body after dead
body pops up wherever Claire asks a few leading questions.
It's enough to make this nosy bookseller fear that the
next corpse may be her own.