212

When a bodyguard is killed in the Manhattan penthouse owned by his billionaire boss, Sam Sparks, the case gets under Detective Ellie Hatcher’s skin. But she has to set aside this unsolved crime—and her suspicions of Sparks, which land her a contempt charge and a night in jail—to investigate the murder of an NYU coed, who was being harassed online, and her roommate. Then a real-estate agent who moonlights as a call girl is found murdered after being tortured in a first-class hotel, and Hatcher and partner J. J. Rogan find a common thread in what seem unrelated cases. In the third in the Ellie Hatcher series (after Dead Connection, 2007, and Angel’s Tip, 2008), Burke skillfully portrays her protagonist’s relationships—with victims’ families and persons of interest; with her partner; with her female boss, Liuetentant Robin Tucker; and, especially with ADA Max Donovan, whose love provides her only respite from the work with which she’s obsessed.