A beautifully crafted sense of place surrounds prizewinning journalist and nonfiction writer Barry Siegel's debut thriller in a cocoon of credibility, adding weight to a strong story. "If he closed his eyes, Jimmy almost could imagine himself back in the La Graciosa of old," Siegel writes about the fictional town on the central California coast. "Gone now was the cigar factory, the big wholesale meat market, the dairy, the Greyhound bus station... Henry's Hardware, where you could buy everything from kerosene lamps to washboards, was now an empty lot. The meat market was a dress store, the creamery a complex of sushi, cappuccino and moccasin shops. La Graciosa hadn't turned precious yet, but it was fighting the battle." In an area where the most important industry is no longer agriculture but nuclear energy, the town's own power structure has shifted. At its center is a dangerously ambitious district attorney, Dennis Taylor, who will do anything to win. Lawyer Greg Monarch, carving out a quiet living doing estates and wills, has worked for and against Taylor in the past, and has been badly burned on both sides. Now Taylor is about to nail Monarch's best friend and former law partner for murder, and Monarch has only a few faded defensive skills to fight what appears to be another losing battle. But as sharp and surprising as the book's resolution is, it's the image of the fading, changing town of La Graciosa that will stay in your memory.