In Edgar Award-winner Meg Gardiner's third thriller featuring forensic psychologist Jo Beckett, politics and pop culture cross paths- with deadly results.
Tasia McFarland is a washed-up country-pop singer desperate for the break that will get her back atop the charts. She's also the ex-wife of the president of the United States. So when Tasia writes a song with politically charged lyrics, people take note and her star begins to rise anew. In the spectacle-driven opener of her comeback tour, she is lowered from a helicopter, hundreds of feet above her adoring fans, while firing a prop Colt .45 at the fireworks filled stage. Tasia is riding high.
Until she's killed by a bullet to the neck, before a shocked crowd of 30,000.
When video can't prove the shot came from Tasia's Colt .45 and the ballistics report comes up empty, the authorities call in forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett to do a psychological autopsy and help avert a political disaster. But as Jo sifts through the facts, she only finds more questions: Did Tasia kill herself in one last cry for attention? Were those lyrics the ranting of a paranoid woman losing her grip? Or warnings from a woman afraid and in danger? And most disturbing of all: Just what does Tasia's death mean for a president-and in fact a nation- teetering on the brink of catastrophe?
© 2003-2026