Trophies and Dead Things

A RANDOM SERIES OF MURDERS IS ONLY a succession of headlines in the San Francisco Chronicle for investigator Sharon McCone until one of her legal co-op's clients becomes a victim. Perry Hilderly had been a founder of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement in the early 1960s. Although he had settled down and drawn up a proper will several years earlier, a holograph document was found among his possessions ... the new will disinherits his children and leaves his considerable estate to four unknowns.

As Sharon tries to track down this strange quartet, she wonders what connection they had had with the dead man. One is a popular news anchor, one is a successful divorce attorney, one runs a Marin County horse stable, and the fourth is an alcoholic oysterman. Before long, Sharon notices a pattern--a tangled pattern of involvement leading back to the Vietnam War.

When the random killer starts to strike closer to home, the facts behind Hilderly's death become less abstract. Never before has Sharon become so personally involved in a case--and faced so squarely the brutal consequences of murderous rage.