After her recent harrowing experiences, attorney Barbara Holloway isn't looking to take on any new courtroom cases; instead she's happy working from a booth in a café in the local working-class neighborhood.

But when the sister of "Baby Killer" Kennerman asks for help, Barbara reluctantly looks into matters and finds that incompetent lawyers and a smear campaign from the local right-wing press are going to allow a killer to go free. The deeper Barbara delves into the case, the more atrocities she finds and the more she believes that the best defense may not be enough.

With this extraordinary novel, Kate Wilhelm returns to the marvelous milieu of Death Qualified, bringing us a page-turning legal thriller of the finest caliber.