H is for Homicide (Kinsey Millhone Mystery)

His name was Parnell Perkins, and until shortly after midnight, hed been a claims adjuster for California Fidelity. Then someone came along and put paid to that line of work. and to any other. Parnell Perkins had been shot at close range and left for dead in the parking lot outside California Fidelitys offices.

To the cops, it looked like a robbery gone sour. To Kinsey Millhone, it looked like the cops were walking away from the case. She didnt like the idea that a colleague and sometime drinking companion had been murdered. Or the idea that his murderer was loose and on the prowl. It made her feel exposed. Vulnerable.

Bibianna Diaz was afraid for her life. If there was on thing she knew for sure, it was that you didnt cross Raymond Maldonado and live to tell the tale. And Bibianna had well and truly crossed him, running out on his crazy wedding plans and going into hiding in Santa Teresa – light years away from the Los Angeles barrio that was home turf to Raymond and his gang. Now she needed money to buy time, to make sure shed put enough space between them. And the quickest way she knew to get money was to work an insurance scam – just like the ones Raymond was running down in L.A. The trouble was, Bibianna picked California Fidelity as her mark. And it wasnt long before her name surfaced in one of Parnell Perkinss open files and Kinsey was on her case. But so, too, was her spurned suitor, Raymond Maldonado.