The ninth novel of Gail Bowen’s popular series finds Canada’s favourite amateur sleuth,
 Joanne Kilbourn, on holiday at a cottage borrowed from a lawyer friend, one of a cluster
 of summer homes owned by lawyers from the same prestigious firm. When one of them kills
 himself the night after a long talk with Joanne, she is pushed into investigating just
 what her neighbours are involved with, an investigation that has startling – and fatal
 – consequences.
Bowen’s depiction of this community of lawyers, each in his or her way now divorced from
 the ideals of justice and mercy that once motivated them all, is both compassionate and
 hard-nosed. There is Zack, the charming but controlling paraplegic; Blake and Lily,
 whose daughter, Gracie, struggles to keep her dignity as her parents’ marriage falls
 apart; Noah, who would rather practise carpentry than the law, and his wife, Delia,
 who is consumed by worry about the firm. The mounting stress among these lawyers is
 palpable as Joanne delves into their lives. And Joanne faces her own personal anxieties
 too when she discovers that her former lover, Inspector Alex Kequahtooway, is mixed up 
in what seems to be some very sordid legal business.
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