Claire�s troubles begin because she helped a down-on-her-luck friend from college, Evelyn Martin, who asked to stay with Claire while deciding where to live and what to do following the loss of her job in Denver. A short time later Claire realizes she�s the victim of identity fraud and thinks Evelyn might be the perpetrator. Not long after, police find the decomposed body of Evelyn in a house she rented in a desirable Santa Fe neighborhood. Also discovered are credit cards with Claire�s name on them�along with credit cards and personal items stolen from three other women Claire and Evelyn knew at college. A rare signed first edition of Herman Melville�s The Confidence-Man, missing from Claire�s house, is not among the items recovered by police.
When a witness tells police about an argument she saw the evening of the murder, and the description fits Claire, suddenly all the twists of fate seemed aligned against her. To establish her innocence, Claire draws on her expertise as a librarian at the University of New Mexico�s Center for Southwest Research, contacts with rare book dealers, and her ability to see through pretense and guise�in herself and others.
