Amazon.com description: Product Description: 'One of the most literate and gifted writers the mystery world has seen for some time.' - VAL MCDERMID 'If there is a new P.D. James...I would put my money on Laurie King.' - Boston Globe Voted Best First Crime Novelist of the Year in the UK and America. San Francisco homicide detective Kate Martinelli is feeling lonely, bewildered and angry: her partner Lee, recovering from a gunshot wound, has decided that she must spend time on her own, a move that Kate can only see as rejection. Kate befriends the bright, quirky twelve-year-old Jules, and when the girl's parents go on a trip, Kate agrees to care for her. But events spiral out of control when Kate decides to drive out to northern Washington to the farm where Lee is staying. In a rural area where a serial killer has been victimising young girls, Jules disappears...