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THE TIES THAT BIND by Warren Adler

THE TIES THAT BIND

by Warren Adler

Pub Date: May 24th, 1994
ISBN: 1-55611-395-1
Publisher: Donald Fine

Who would've thought that Sgt. Fiona FitzGerald, that Washington child of wealth and privilege (The Witch of Watergate, 1992, etc.), ever had a torrid S/M affair with fatherly Farley Lipscomb? Well, she did, years and years ago—but not too many years to flash back to it when she sees the condition of ambitious job seeker Phyla Herbert's mutilated corpse. Fiona's convinced that Farley—now Associate Justice Lipscomb of the Supreme Court—is up to his old bondage-with-violence tricks again, even though another suspect—Phyla's childhood friend Phelps Barker—is being pressed on her by her new partner, Gail Prentiss, her boss, Phyla's outraged power-broker father, the Washington Post, and the weight of the evidence. As Fiona struggles with the burning question of whether she'll ever feel that way again, should she trust the evidence (yeah, right) or play her hunch and try whipping up an encore for Justice Lipscomb? Despite much posturing and pontificating (pro and contra) about ``whipping, piercing, cutting, hanging, electric shocking, rack stretching, imprisonment, altered consciousness, mummification, tickling, stomping,'' this tawdry tale is the liveliest of Fiona's recent adventures.