Nothing gets by Dora Conti. Her latest case brings the tough-as-nails claims adjuster to the mean streets of New York, where Lewis Starrett, a wealthy society jeweler, has been fatally stabbed. Though the killer was apparently an amateur, there was a lot of power behind the knife’s thrust. The victim lived in an eighteen-room duplex on Fifth Avenue with his wife, daughter, son, and daughter-in-law. Conti must look into the lives of this privileged clan before deciding whether to pay out Lewis Starrett’s life insurance policy. As it turns out, their family affairs are a seething viper’s nest of lust, adultery, and escalating violence. The body count rises—along with Conti’s growing desire for burnt-out cop John Wenden.

The seductive new bestseller by the author of McNally's Secret and Sullivan's Sting. When jewelry magnate Lewis Starrett is stabbed to death, insurance investigator Dora Conti must determine if the family's claim should be honored. For all is not as it seems in the Starrett empire, and soon Dora is drawn into a world of greed, corruption, and . . . temptation.