V.I. Warshawski almost runs over a woman on the way home from a party. Unraveling the mystery of the battered and discarded woman will plunge V.I. into the darkest and most emotionally shattering case of her career, taking her into the troubled home of a wealthy Chicago family, into the pampered world of a Hollywood star, and behind the razor wire of a woman's prison where the more dangerous criminals may be on the wrong side of the bars.