As such things are measured in Washington, Denise Burke has everything a woman of wit could want: two hip kids able to look after themselves; a marriage constructed to allow maximum mutual leeway with a husband smack in the center of Clinton's inner circle; and a high-profile lover, the most eligible bachelor on Capitol Hill. Plus, she's a bestselling author of several true crime books.

When her lover urges Denise to look into an old murder in his district - and then just as urgently begs her to drop the whole thing, her stubborn streak kicks in. And when he dies in flagrante with a D.C. callgirl, her bullshit detector goes on red alert: the good congressman didn't have to pay for sex. But when death strikes even closer to home, Denise becomes a woman with a big-time problem. Someone is very serious about getting her to drop the old case. Serious enough to make her the target of the next hit.