Truth or dare. Or die.
“What’s on your mind, officer?” Jo said.
He slid a glance over his shoulder at her. “Little late to talk the driver down off the ledge, isn’t it?”
“That’s not why I’m here.”
His glance was sharp. “So who are you?”
“I’m the deadshrinker.”
He slowed. “What?”
“I don’t shrink heads. I shrink souls,” she said. “I figure out why the deceased got dead.”
An ongoing string of high-profile and very public murder-suicides has San Francisco even more rattled than a string of recent earthquakes. A flamboyant fashion designer burns to death, clutching the body of his murdered lover. A U.S. attorney launches her BMW off a highway overpass, killing herself and three others.
Enter forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett, hired by the SFPD to cut open not the victim’s body but the victim’s life. Jo’s job is to complete the psychological autopsy, shedding light on the circumstances of any equivocal death. Soon she makes a shocking discovery: All the suicides belonged to something called the Dirty Secrets Club, a group of A-listers with nothing but money and plenty to hide. As the deaths continue, Jo delves into the disturbing motives behind this shadowy group – until she receives a chilling message that dredges up dark secrets Jo thought she’d left deep in her past.
Praise for The Dirty Secrets Club
“A winner in every way. The Dirty Secrets Club is nuanced and layered – and a harrowing thriller that chews up the streets of San Francisco from the high-rises to the Tenderloin. Author Gardiner makes every one of her characters leap alive off the page, and I personally am in love with the most compelling of them all, Jo Beckett – the psychiatrist who analyzes dead people for the cops and who’s willing to trade her cell phone for a cup of coffee.”
Jeffery Deaver
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