In Laurie R. King's Edgar-winning first novel, A Grave Talent, San Francisco homicide detective Kate Martinelli finds one of her cases has become, to her horror, tragically entangled with her personal life. In this third book of King's extraordinary series, Kate is involved in a nightmare that begins in her off-duty life and turns into a crime for which she feels herself responsible.As the story opens, Kate is alone, angry and bewildered, in the house she shares with her life partner, Lee. Lee, slowly - so slowly - recovering from the effects of the gunshot that crippled her in A Grave Talent, decides that she must spend time on her own, a move that Kate can only see as rejection. Lonely, Kate befriends the bright, quirky, twelve-year-old Jules. When the girl's parents go on a trip, Kate agrees to care for her.Rashly Kate decides to drive with Jules to northern Washington, to "drop in" on the farm where Lee is staying with an aunt. During the trip, in a rural area where a serial killer has been victimizing young girls, Jules disappears. Read Less