In the six years since her first novel, A Question of Guilt, was nominated for the Edgar Award, Frances Fyfield has proved herself a master of the crime novel again and again with such books as Shadows on the Mirror, Not That Kind of Place, and The Play Room. On both sides of the Atlantic she has been consistently singled out by reviewers for the style and intelligence of her novels, the complexity of her characters, and the taut suspense of her plots....

"In the new Eve Dallas police thriller ... what look[s] like a lover's quarrel turned fatal has larger--and more terrifying--motives behind it ... The scene in the West Village studio appears to be classic crime-of-passion: two wineglasses by the bed, music playing, and a young sculptor named Ariel Byrd with the back of her head bashed in. But when Dallas tracks down the wealthy Upper East Side woman who called 911, the details don't add up. Gwen...