Martha Heydrich is the stay-at-home wife of a very rich husband, into everybody's business, and rumored to be having an affair with a local teenager, Michael Platte. One morning she seemingly vanishes, and that night her husband returns home to find the pool house ablaze. Once the fire is extinguished, police discover two bodies. One is Michael Platte and the other is an unknown man. With Martha nowhere to be found, the police to turn to ex-FBI agent...

Demarkian attempts a good deed on Valentine's Day: saving a neighbor from jail. Psychiatrist Paul Hazzard was renowned for his insights into the human mind, until his wife was savagely murdered. She was stabbed to death with an ornamental dagger, a grisly crime for which Paul was tried but never convicted. Four years later, to escape his greedy family and his former mistress, Paul takes an unlikely lover: the homely, middle-aged Hannah Krekorian....

A crack on the skull cheats film star Tashiba Kent of her 100th birthday cake. She is killed in the middle of the party, held in her mansion in Maine. FBI agent Gregor Demarkian, who is among the guests, goes after the killer. By the author of Bleeding Hearts.