Kinsey Millhone wird von Marvin Striker engagiert, den vermeintlichen Selbstmord seiner Verlobten zu untersuchen, die Kinsey kurz zuvor bei einem Ladendiebstahl erwischt hat. Und wie es scheint, war die junge Frau noch in deutlich düsterere Geschäfte verwickelt.A woman with a murky past who kills herself-or was it murder? A dying old man cared for by the son he pummeled mercilessly. A lovely woman whose life is about to splinter into a thousand fragments. A professional shoplifting ring racking up millions in stolen goods. A brutal and unscrupulous gangster. A wandering husband, rich and powerful. A spoiled kid awash in gambling debt thinking he can beat the system. A lonely widower mourning the death of his lover, desperate for answers that may be worse than the pain of his loss. An elegant but ruthless businessman whose dealings are definitely outside the law: the spider at the center of the web.

And Kinsey Millhone, whose thirty-eighth-birthday gift is a punch in the face that leaves her with two black eyes and a busted nose.

Sue Grafton has become one of the most popular female writers, both in the UK and in the US. Born in Kentucky in 1940, she began her career as a TV scriptwriter before Kinsey Millhone and the 'alphabet' series took off. She plans to take Kinsey all the way through the alphabet to Z. Sue lives and writes in Montecito, California and Louisville, Kentucky.

Sue Grafton: Sue Grafton, geboren 1940 in Kentucky, schrieb Drehbücher, bevor sie ihren ersten Roman veröffentlichte. Inzwischen sind ihre Bücher um die witzige und einzelgängerische Privatdetektivin Kinsey Millhone eine der erfolgreichsten amerikanischen Krimireihen überhaupt. Sue Grafton ist Präsidentin des Verbandes der Mystery Writers of America und lebt in Santa Barbara, Kalifornien.