Kat Colorado's current case is really getting to her. It was she who found the mangled body of a young woman on the road, apparently the victim of a hit-and-run accident. But then the victim's mother turns up in her office asking for help--convinced that her daughter's death was no accident.

Detective Lindsay Boxer is jogging along a beautiful San Francisco street when a fiery explosion rips through the neighborhood. A town house owned by an Internet millionaire is immediately engulfed in flames, and when Lindsay plunges inside to search for survivors, she finds three people dead. An infant who lived in the house cannot be found--and a mysterious message at the scene leaves Lindsay and the San Francisco Police Department completely baffled....

The story of Kinsey Millhone's impetuous, long-ago marriage to vice cop Mickey Magruder is told.