Naomi Anstruther's undercover operation among the drug gangs, planned carefully by Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur, has ended in a bloody shoot-out. Naomi escapes, but both her ex-boyfriend and her current lover-who shouldn't have been there-are dead. Now the biggest danger to Naomi is a young woman named Esme, who believes that she and Naomi should personally avenge Donald's and Lyndon's deaths.

"One of the most exquisitely sardonic stylists writing crime fiction today."-Richard Lopez, Washington Post Book World "[A] black and zestful police series.... Matchless stuff by the genre's finest stylist."-Literary Review "One of the most exquisitely sardonic stylists writing crime fiction today."-Richard Lopez, Washington Post Book World "A tremendous writer. . . . Where else can you find a mystery series with as many layers of gorgeous stuff?"-Chicago Tribune "Bill James's Harpur and Iles books are deliciously unsavory.-John Harvey, "The Crime Writer's Crime Writer," The Guardian "[A] brilliantly stylish series of novels .... A unique author who is an acquired habit, but once discovered, impossible to kick."-Daily Express [London], Frances Fyfield "British mystery writing's finest prose stylist...startling, achingly funny and sometimes wholly surreal.... Essential reading."-The Observer [London], Peter Guttridge