The story opens in 1954 with the main character: Anne Schefter, a 28-year-old US constitutional law expert, currently unemployed ever since concluding a position as associate campaign manager in Helen Gagahan-Douglas’ upsetting loss of a US senatorial race in 1950 against Richard M. Nixon. 

Anne is approached by her Stanford law school friend Natalie (Nat) Gottlieb, now a tax lawyer for a law firm in San Francisco. The firm requires a person knowledgeable about constitutional law issues to assist in defending their client’s appeal. 

The client, Rick Guidotti, is serving a 10-year federal sentence in Alcatraz for counterfeiting. However, Guidotti is now being charged for the 1948 murder of his paramour, Margaret (Margie) D. Rimeri, in her chalet in Lake Tahoe. Margie’s husband, Leon Rimeri, is a mob boss in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Her body was discovered by a farmer plowing his remote field in Woodland, CA. 

It turns out that two of Rimeri’s men transported the body there after finding it lifeless in the chalet (or so they say). Guidotti was previously employed by Rimeri’s gang as an enforcer and collector of debts. A unique complication is that Margie was two months pregnant, and the DA seeks first-degree murder counts and the death penalty for both homicides. 

Anne is recruited to defend Guidotti on the criminal charges that the senior partner Carmine Cavilieri considers a false allegation. Criminal defense matters are a significant shift from Anne’s regular legal expertise, but she agrees to be “of counsel”. Noteworthy to the case is Margie’s music box with a secret compartment that holds key data to the whole Rimeri network of crimes. 

A vagueness of blood typing, confounding of paternity, alibis, and exactly what type of weapon was used during the homicide complicates the defense’s arguments during the trial. But who really committed the homicide is an enigma left unsolved.

An audiobook produced by e-Audio Productions