Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's, 1st, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Tom Shephard is the new homicide detective in swanky Laguna Beach, California, and he's come to town from L.A. after killing a boy in a justifiable homicide. But the rep and the psychological baggage has followed him to Laguna Beach. Shephard has barely found his desk when he's called to the scene of a particularly brutal homicide in which the victim has been doused in turpentine and set ablaze. Shortly thereafter, a second victim is dealt a similar fate, and Shephard finds himself drawn into a complex mystery involving sex, blackmail and murder that stretches back forty years and that also involves members of his own family. Paper tanning slightly. Clean copy.