` One of the most original & vital voices in all of American crime fiction` Laura Lippman, author of Sunburn Virginia Barkeley is a nice, well brought-up girl. So what is she doing wandering through a snow storm in the middle of the night, blind drunk & covered in someone else`s blood? When Claude Margolis` body is found a quarter of a mile away with half-a-dozen stab wounds to the neck, suddenly Virginia doesn`t seem such a nice girl after all. Her only hope is Meecham, the cynical small-town lawyer hired as her defence. But how can he believe in Virginia`s innocence when even she can`t be sure what happened that night? & when the answer seems to fall into his lap, why won`t he just walk away?