Ballantine Books
July 2001
On Sale: July 3, 2001
Featuring: Carol Starkey
395 pages ISBN: 034543448X EAN: 9780345434487 Mass Market Paperback Add to Wish List
On the heels of the breakthrough bestselling and critically
acclaimed L. A. REQUIEM, Robert Crais returns to the City of
Angels with the most ambitious novel of his career--a
stand-alone thriller featuring a complex and original female
protagonist.
Carol Starkey is a survivor--a Los Angeles bomb squad
veteran now doing time as a Detective-2 with LAPD’s Criminal
Conspiracy Section. It has been three years since the
detonation that killed her partner and lover, “Sugar”
Boudreaux. Sugar saved Carol’s life, but couldn’t stop two
bomb fragments that sliced through her protective Kevlar,
leaving her permanently scarred. The emotional fallout from
the trauma can only be tempered by a steady diet of Tagamet
and gin.
When a seemingly innocuous bomb call takes the life of
another colleague, Carol embarks on an investigation of a
series of explosions that reveal intentions far more
disturbing than one-shot acts of anarchy. They are designed
expressly to kill bomb technicians, and as the one tech who
got away, Carol is in the fight for her life.
Against the dazzling and lonely backdrop of contemporary Los
Angeles, Crais has crafted the most unforgettable female
lead character in crime fiction and pitted her against a
frighteningly brilliant killer for the modern age.