The victim belongs to a prominent Miami yacht-building family. Criminal cases are not Gail s specialty but when the daughter of Anthony Quintana, Gail s ex-fiance, asks for legal advice on behalf of a boyfriend, Gail feels compelled to oblige. Eventually she discovers that Anthony too has been drafted to look at the case from another angle. So begins the rumble of seismic forces placing the estranged Connor and Quintana on a collision course. Although this plot picks up where Suspicion of Betrayal left off, Malice seems a more ambitious book.
Characters make a bigger dent.
We see the spiritual paralysis of Miami s nouveau-riche , how they become entangled in possessions and power. Duncan Cresswell watches Jay Leno and dreams of escaping to a tropical island, as his wife flings his TV remote across the room. Their son works his mouth soundlessly while flicking a videogame controller. These loveless people would be merely sad if they were not also so destructive. Gail s personal dilemmas run parallel to the murder story line.