Defensive Wounds

Few tears are shed over the slain corpse of Marie Corrigan, found in the presidential suite at the Ritz-Carlton during a legal convention. A Cleveland defense attorney with a history of falsifying evidence, Corrigan was resoundingly hated by all--colleagues, adversaries . . . even her lovers.

Investigator Theresa MacLean is summoned to the crime scene by her daughter, Rachael, who is working the front desk, and immediately knows she is walking into a forensic nightmare--with trace evidence left behind by countless former hotel guests. But the discovery of two more bodies in rapid succession indicates that this nightmare is far worse than she initially imagined, that Corrigan's death was not a crime of passion, but the opening move of a serial killer with a vendetta . . . and that Theresa and her daughter are both frighteningly close to death.