At the start of this taut crime novel from Shamus Award–winner Ure (The Fault Tree
), Jessie Dancing, an operator for a roadside emergency service in Phoenix, Ariz., receives a call from a driver in Tucson, Darren Markson, who sounds as if he's being murdered. Not content to merely contact the local police, Jessie tracks down Markson's family and is surprised when his wife tells her he's still alive. Back in her hometown of Tucson, Jessie's past returns to haunt her, including her acquittal three years earlier for a cold-blooded murder she may or may not have committed. When a young woman she meets near the site of Markson's phone call gets blown up in her car, Jessie is once again thrown into a world where the lines between guilty and not guilty blur. As Ure slowly peels back the layers of scar tissue to reveal Jessie's past crimes, the investigation of the woman's murder takes on even more depth as readers come to realize just how damaged the feisty heroine truly is. (Apr.)
