Fall From Grace

MOUNTIE KARL ALBERG WAS EXPECTING A ROOM WITH A VIEW--INSTEAD, HE GOT A CORPSE WITH A TALE

Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg takes his on-again/off-again Significant Other, town librarian Cassandra Mitchell, on a boat trip to a sun-drenched cove on the Pacific coast--only to have a body turn up at the foot of a cliff on the beach.

In seeking the victim's identity--and that of his killer--Alberg must sift through a bewildering variety of leads. And he must contend, as well, with the demands of his college-age daughter, whose ideals of justice (for animals as well as humans) are hard to live up to. The proprietor of a roadside zoo, his beautiful and dissatisfied wife, a nervous young husband trying to prove himself, a strange old woman who lives alone with a houseful of cats--all come under Alberg's scrutiny until their parts in the mystery begin to emerge.

And then a violent confrontation makes everything clear.