Virtually unnoticed, JoLayne Lucks stops by the Grab'n'Go to play the same numbers she's played every week for five years. Each lotto number marking the age at which she dumped a tiresome lover. She doesn't know it yet, but the discarded men in JoLayne's life have finally amounted to something.
Detective Anna Travis is working on a horrific, brutal murder case that has created a media frenzy. The victim, Louise Pennel, a 24-year-old, single, 'fun-loving' girl, was last seen in a London night club wearing a sequinned mini-dress and a red rose in her hair. In an eerie mirror image of the famous LA murder case of Elizabeth Short in the l930s known as the Black Dahlia, her body was found dumped by the River Thames...severed in half and brutalised beyond recognition. Anna Travis must summon all the strength and guile she became so well known for in "Above Suspicion" to hunt down this sadistic killer.
It's been eighty-six years since the Red Sox won a World Series. Eighty-six years cursed. Twelve-year-old Oscar Egg be-lieves he is cursed, just like the Red Sox. His real parents didn't want him, and now his adopted mom has dumped him off to live with his strange, sickly dad.