Private eye Spenser has never had any difficulty handling women. But when four stunningly beautiful trophy wives hire him to protect them against a blackmailer threatening to expose their infidelities, even he must admit that they look like trouble.

Tracking down Gary Eisenhower, the blackmailer and serial adulterer, isn''t too difficult - but almost in spite of himself Spenser finds that he quite likes the guy. Certainly the women, with their loose purse-strings and looser morals, and their loveless marriages to rich, powerful, corrupt men, are hard to feel sorry for.

But a killing soon changes the complexion of the case, and draws Spenser into the world of Boston''s moneyed aristocracy: a world of corruption, vice and murder. As the bodies start to pile up, Spenser must decide which of his friends he can trust.

''One of the great series in the history of the American detective story'' New York Times