Description

Best-Selling mystery writer Susan Dunlap, recommended champion of two Anthony Prizes and a Macavity Award, provides us a strong new book featuring private investigator--and previous medical examiner--Kiernan E' Shaughnessy.Betrayed and put up to get the responsibility for a death the result of a lethal and highly infectious case of Lassa fever, Kiernan gets significantly more than she bargained for when she reacts to a call from a classic university "buddy." She understands that the demise she's investigating might have certainly serious effects for the general public if its trigger is revealed, unintentionally or otherwise.  And the path of hints she uses--from her base in North Park to the Nevada desert--is agonizingly complex.Not assisting things is her houseman, the generally affable Brad Tchernak.  Tchernak can be a wonderful cook, friend, and puppy feeder.  But he's feeling ignored as being a detective, and that's produced tension between him and his employer.  While Kiernan chases her situation, Tchernak assumes one of his true personal, investigating a hotshot geologist who has just returned from a possibly multi-million-dollar gas discover in Main America.Of program, Tchernakis enthusiasm for this situation may land him in human danger.  And, as Kiernan investigates the dubious and worrying death that might portend worldwide catastrophe, she must deal with her own challenges--particularly the persistent self reliance that may be her downfall.  As the apparently disparate instances connect, it becomes all too obvious to Kiernan that she and Tchernak had better find what theyare searching for, and quickly, before they, too, become "systems of evidence."From the Hardcover edition.