FALSE PROFITS

On the fast track to a corner office, financial analyst Tucker Sinclair finds more than her promotion in jeopardy when her latest client’s body washes ashore by the Venice Beach pier.

Milton Polk is more than your average Hollywood hotshot. The prominent neurologist had delusions that Aames & Associates would write a business plan to attract $25 million of venture capital for his fledgling NeuroMed Labs. When Tucker recommends a more modest $3 million, investors led by a dentist named Mo Whitener scream for her head because the plan they received did propose a $25 million initial investment, supported by obviously inflated profit estimates. When Tucker tries to show Gordon Aames her original report, she finds the entire NeuroMed file snatched from under the unwary eye of Eugene, her administrative assistant, who shamefacedly admits that he left her files unattended during lunch. A trip to the lab under the suspicious eye of Francine Chalmers, Polk’s office manager, raises more questions than it answers. Instead of the missing file, Tucker finds insurance claims for a number of fictitious patients, including herself. She also finds Aames’s good friend Wade Covington searching Polk’s files. But a summons from the LAPD asking her to ID Polk’s corpse kicks Tucker’s investigation into high gear as she struggles to save both her job and her shapely butt.

Romantic byplay with her ex Eric Bergstrom and sexy Detective Deegan provide Tucker scant distraction from sleuthing: a lively debut.