When beautiful, young N.Y. widow Valerie Summers (daughter of the late ranch king Jeb McCandless) finds an unknown corpse on her living-room floor, her lawyer moves her to the exclusive Beaumont Hotel--where she gets a sympathetic reception from manager Pierre Chambrun (Pentecost's favorite sleuth) and PR aide Mark Haskell. Corpses continue to surface, however: the second is another anonymous, the third is the cop who's posted at Valerie's apartment door. Yes, it seems that someone is out to frame Valerie--and so, with help from the manager of the McCandless ranch, Chambrun & Co. examine Valerie's past for clues: her marriage, her brief friendship with a tragically crippled man, the plane-crash death of her old college classmate. Does any of this link up to those recent murders which the cops are determined to pin on Valerie? Well, sort of--but it will take some sheer coincidence to get Valerie (and Pentecost) out of the predicament. Still: the best of the recent Chambrun stories--readable, intriguing, and almost credible.