When psychologist - detective, Alex Delaware, is invited to a party for a Los Angeles sex therapist, thrown at an elaborate mansion, he ignores the invitation. But soon his curiosity gets the better of him. After all, it'll be nice to see how the other - rich - half lives. But soon, Alex runs into someone from his past, Sharon Ransom. Someone whom he was deeply in love with, but who left him without a moment's notice more than a decade earlier. Sharon now seems jumpy and nervous about something. What, Alex doesn't know. But he plans to find out, as he makes a lunch date with her. One that never happens, as she is found dead the next day. The cause, an apparent suicide. Alex knows better. Driven by his own guilt over Sharon's death, he decides to find out what really happened to her. His detective work takes him on a journey through some of California's richest areas, and most powerful people, and into the minds of many people, where childhood terror is still lurking.

Complete Detective and Suspense Novels by Agatha Christie
This collection is titled so because it does not include non-detective or non-fiction works by Agatha Christie. However, detective and suspense novels by this author are represented here in full.

Tony Hillerman and Rosemary Herbert have assembled stories that trace the evolution of the American detective short story. Their contention, amply supported by their selections, is that American authors have stretched, modified, and violated the rules and structural form of the detective story, thereby continuously enriching this genre, and ensuring its longevity.
Each story is preceded with an interesting, one-page discussion on topics like the emergence of credible female detectives, the growth of regionalism, and the development of authentic, psychologically complex characters.