IT’S RAINING MEN

Emma Price won’t have to take any more attitude from her boss and friend Dawn Prescott: The head attorney of the New York Capital Crimes Division has been murdered.

A phone call from Dawn took Emma to a rendezvous where she was in the perfect position to get mistaken for Dawn and kidnapped. Once they realized their mistake, the kidnappers soon corrected it in spades. Unfortunately for them, neither one survived their victim for long. Now Emma, lead investigator for Capital Crimes, has to figure out which of the hundreds of people who wanted her old friend dead actually made good on the wish. As usual, however, her caseload is complicated by several supporting nightmares. Arthur Nevins, a lifer who claims that his murder conviction nine years ago was coerced, ditches Capital Crimes as his law team in favor of fancy-pants attorney Jason Samuels. Emma’s ex-husband Will, not content to be up for an Oscar for Best Editing, has evidently set his sights beyond his trophy second wife. Dawn’s father, a Connecticut senator, is as apoplectic as Emma is astonished when they learn that Dawn has named Emma guardian of her adopted daughter. And Emma’s biological offspring are kicking up a fuss as well.

Amazingly, Emma (Stealing for a Living, 2003, etc.) not only establishes the unexpected connections that solve her juicy if not very mysterious cases, but keeps her sanity and sometimes her good humor.