From the Editors' Choice Award-winning poet & the 2015 Book Award finalist:A "hypnotic" political thriller... with an epic courtroom showdown.The conscience of a town steeped in sexism, vanity, and hypocrisy is pricked by the brutal murder of a mysterious woman in a park in Los Angeles. The shock is transformed into a steamy, seductive scandal when the body turns out to be that of Susan Whitaker, the flamboyant wife of the governor of California. Soon, a dazzlingly intricate shuffle of volatile links leads the police to the delicate theory of secret lover/blackmailer, and to the indictment of Benjamin Carlton, Hollywood's most influential black celebrity. Then curious things begin to happen when Carlton's ambitious girlfriend, Rita Spencer, suddenly unearths the shocking secret that Susan Whitaker did not, in fact, exist. Little does anyone realize that this colossal fraud is a mere curtain raiser to a chilling world of ugly skeletons dating back to the assassination of a U.S. senator in a Washington hotel sauna, skeletons connected to riveting sex scandals in high places, skeletons the FBI and political kingmakers will kill for...