Death by surprise

the long version

K. C. Carlisle thinks she knows all the answers after working for several years as a storefront lawyer in an exclusive seaside city in northern California. She is especially disdainful of her stuffy cousin, Kenneth, a corporate lawyer running for political office. But when Kenneth is jailed on a murder charge and others in the well-to-do Carlisle family are implicated, K. C. plunges into a search for the killer although the inquiries threaten to destroy her late father's good name. It takes all her savvy plus a good measure of courage for K. C. to face down some ghosts in her past and bring the murderer to justice.