Hire a Hangman

San Francisco homicide lieutenant Frank Hastings, last seen in A Death Before Dying , is severely tested when top transplant surgeon Brice Hanchett is shot and killed late one night after leaving his mistress's apartment. There is no shortage of suspects in the murder of the generally hated doctor. His mistress's jealous husband, his betrayed wife, his wife's lover, an alcoholic ex-wife, a son who despised him and a stepdaughter he sexually abused are among the immediate circle. Further afield are the families of patients denied transplants due to Hanchett's decisions in allocating scarce organs. When the nearly demented mother of a child who died in such circumstances is also found murdered, the solution to the case depends on an identification by a spunky Latina bartender who had fenced the stolen guns used in the murders and who highly resents the police pressure brought against her. Hastings, meanwhile, must cope with the pressures brought to bear on his new family by previous marriages. Wilcox adroitly captures the flavors of life in the upper and lower reaches of a cosmopolitan city, creating a superior and suspenseful procedural. (Apr . )