Frank May's practice leans heavily to estate planning. Murder cases are way out of his line. But when his client, Stanford law professor Peter Prosser, is murdered, Frank becomes deeply entangled in yet another violent death. Prosser had been writing a detective novel; Frank has the only copy of the manuscript, minus the crucial last chapter. Far from a literary masterpiece, the novel features the (thinly disguised) members of the Soames family, the family of Prosser's ex-wife — and even a character based on Frank himself.
Can this badly-written novel tell us why Prosser died and who killed him? Mysteriously, real-life events start paralleling events in the novel, including a second murder: a woman in the Soames household, dressed in a red kimono, is strangled in her room. As Frank follows the trail, it leads to a number of unlikely places, including the cultural studies department of Stanford University and a wedding chapel in Las Vegas. Maybe if he can endure reading the dead professor's novel, he can solve the evolving mystery.
Part of the series The Frank May Chronicles by QP Books.
