Clean Cut
by By Monsour, Theresa
Category: Fiction , Literary

Michaels is upper-class, a winter blond with gray eyes and hair that's almost white, and so GQ-handsome that Finch, desperate for business one rainy evening on the streets of St. Paul, falls gratefully into his expensive car. But Michaels is after darker thrills than sex. When he turns nasty and Finch begins to struggle, it's over fast.Paris Murphy, in bed with the husband she can't live with and can't live without, is called to the brutal murder scene. She knows Finch's beat and knows her story: a farm girl who was a beauty queen at fifteen, and at twenty-three a worn-out hooker desperate to leave the life. Sad for Finch, appalled by her terrible end, Paris is determined to find her murderer.Paris likes to work alone - her intuition helps her solve cases, and she likes to move on hunches without advice or interference. When the heat on this case means that she must have a partner, she chooses Gabriel Nash, a veteran detective whom she trusts with her life, though she doesn't let him dissuade her from walking Finch's beat dressed as a hooker. That gig doesn't attract the murderer, but at Finch's funeral Paris zeroes in on a suspect. Then other women are found murdered, their bodies defaced with the "signature" of Finch's killer, and Paris uncovers a connection to earlier unsolved crimes. Gabe tries, and fails, to hold her back as she throws herself headlong into the path of the psychopath who wants to have her - and then kill her.