Candace Starr

Candace Starr goes searching for her mother in the Detroit mob, but infiltrating her own crime family may be her deadliest assignment ever. Candace Starr has fallen on hard times since she helped her friend, Detective Malone, with a murder case last year. These days, she trades on her dark celebrity as a former contract killer to keep the wolf from the door and her glass of Scotch whisky full. But, when her teenage half-sister, Janet, shows up, Candace finds herself responsible for more than her nightly bar bill. Candace and Janet's mercurial mother has gone missing while visiting her estranged family of Detroit mobsters, and Candace needs to track her down to take the kid off her hands. But, the vicious Scarpello clan is hiding far more than her mother's whereabouts. Witty, gritty, and full of cocky hard-edged flair, the second book in the Candace Starr series unearths the well-buried secrets of Candace's mob family tree, laying bare the roots of her own identity along the way.

A hard-drinking former hit woman agrees to help catch a killer - though the murderer might just be her. Candace Starr likes to think of herself as retired since she got out of prison - that is, until society maven Kristina Corrigan tries to hire Candace to permanently remove her daughter's barnacle of a boyfriend, Tyler Brent, from their lives. The only catch? Tyler is seventeen years old. Even Candace draws the line at taking out a target who doesn't even shave yet. But when Tyler turns up dead at a river gorge with a broken neck, people start asking questions. Detective Chien-Shiung Malone, the ambitious homicide investigator assigned to the case, has more than a few of her own. Candace isn't about to provide any answers, though - until Malone makes her a proposition she just can't refuse. Candace finds herself signing on as Malone's unofficial partner to help catch Tyler's killer ... despite the possibility she may have murdered the boy herself.