J.P. Beaumont's friend has been murdered along with most of his family. He tries to save a man's reputation and find his killers.

In Seattle, Detective J. P. Beaumont investigates the murder of an executive of a biotechnology company. The suspects range from a fellow corporate executive, to the aunt of a woman the victim is said to have raped. By the author of Lying in Wait.

This novel follows "Murder in the Collective" and "Sisters of the Road", which feature the sleuth Pam Nilsen. It investigates the suspicious death of Loie Marsh before she gets the chance to speak against pornography at a conference on sexuality and the feminist issues which arise from it.

Jonas Piedmont Beaumont has had it rough all his life. Raised by his hardworking, unmarried mother and disowned as a youth by his grandparents. He learned at a very early age how cruel life can be. Two marriages, a treacherous battle with the bottle, assorted midlife and moral dilemmas, and a few decades as a homicide detective haven't convinced him otherwise. For his gruesome caseload continually reinforces those ugly childhood lessons about the...

In the days leading up to Halloween, Harper is hired by a university research group attempting to create an artificial poltergeist. The head researcher suspects someone is faking the phenomena, but Harper's investigation reveals something else entirely: the group has succeeded. When one of the group's members is found dead in a brutal and inexplicable fashion, Harper must determine whether the killer is the ghost itself, or someone all too human....

The sky above Puget Sound blazes orange, as a burning fishing boat fills the air with acrid smoke . . . and the sickening odor of charred flesh. The terrible death of a Seattle fisherman has raised more questions than answers, opening a Pandora's Box of evil that was kept tightly closed for more than half a century. Now a dark cloud is descending over the dead man's frightened widow, and she must turn for help to an old friend, Detective J.P. Beaumont,...