Publisher's Weekly
Carrie Rayborn is a transplanted New Yorker, trying to start a new life as a painter in San Francisco's Bay Area with her 17-year-old daughter Tricia. She soon learns it isn't easy being both a freelance artist and a single mother, but trouble really starts when Tricia is arrested for car theft and accused of shooting a young man named Clifford Hawkins. Although Tricia admits she was high on marijuana and was in the car Hawkins was shot from, she denies murdering him. The authorities are skeptical, and it is left for police detectives Goldstein and Cruz to sort out the puzzle. Hawkins, they discover, was not only a sadistic bully and rapist, but was also part of a crypto-military group named Oneida, bent on terrorist acts. It looks as if Hawkins may have been assassinated by his fellow members, but there are a few surprises in store for the detectives. This first novel is notable for the warmth and sensitivity it displays toward its characters, placing it above the average.