Beauty and the Beast Author:Ed McBain Matthew Hope spotted her on the beach in the Florida Keys. She was spectacular - an unforgettable beauty with exquisite features, ebony hair, and plump, naked breasts that were almost translucent in the sweltering sun. That was on Saturday. — On Monday, the same woman appeared in Hope's law office to file a complaint. She had been badly beaten --... more » a mass of purple bruises with one eye swollen completely shut -- and she wanted her husband put away before something worse happened.
It did. Her body was discovered on Tuesday, bound with wire coat hangers, and burned to a crisp. But her husband -- big, and monstrously ugly -- denies the charge. Now it's up to Matthew Hope to wade through the morass of lies, corruption and sexual perversion and get to the shocking truth....« less