Alternate cover edition of ASIN B00PEWC8RC Gritty. Provocative. Bloody. Blond. Ever since blond detective Ivy Stern got herself kicked off the police force, she’s been slumming it as a private detective, mostly chasing cheating husbands. In some ways, it’s better this way. She’s free to do as she pleases, and there’s no one throwing around phrases like “sex addiction” or “conduct unbecoming an officer.” Ivy never figured her sex life was anyone’s business anyway. When a distraught brother shows up in her office, claiming his sister has been murdered, Ivy’s all over the case. The only thing Ivy’s better at than sex is solving murder cases. And this one is intriguing. There’s no evidence that the victim has been killed, but she’s gone, leaving everything behind from her cell phone to her credit cards. Everything except her bed sheets. And that’s not even mentioning the victim’s cheating ex-boyfriend, her drug habit, and her ties to the Irish mob.

Tess Carver was victim to a brutal, ritualistic murder. Strange symbols were cut into her body, which was found in a ring of trees under a dark sky. The police seem to have the case wrapped up. They’ve imprisoned Gunner Bray, head of the Clayton Society—called a cult by some. The Clayton Society owns the land, and who else but crazy cult members would butcher a woman this way? But the Clayton Society has money to burn, and they’ve come to blond private detective Ivy Stern for help. They want her to clear Gunner’s name and find the real killer. Ivy takes the case. She’s good with murder, and she’s determined to bring Tess’s killer to justice. Even if it really is Gunner, after all.

Blond detective Ivy Stern has always had a complicated relationship with Miles Pike. When Miles hears that his younger brother Gilbert has shot five other college students and himself, Miles is obviously devastated. He can’t understand how his brother could have done it, and he hires Ivy to find out what drove his brother to commit the heinous act. But as Ivy digs deeper into the case, she realizes there’s more here than a typical school shooting. There’s a drug dealer who entered the room and possibly never left. There are connections to the Irish mob. And there is the Pike family itself. They are wealthy and powerful, a dynasty that owns an influential corporation. The more she knows, the further she is pulled into a morass of secrets, half-truths, and betrayal. She thinks Gilbert was murdered. And she’s going to find who did it.