San Francisco stuntwoman Darcy Lott is planning simulated car crashes for a movie when her brother, Gary, an attorney, asks her to take one of his clients, Karen Johnson, to lunch. This is unusual in itself, but when he asks that their older brother John, a police detective, not know about it, she becomes suspicious. Darcy likes Karen, but she is curious when Karen says she is getting a divorce. Gary is not a divorce lawyer. When Karen turns up dead, and John becomes the prime suspect, Darcy feels obligated to find out what is going on. She begins looking into Karen's past and uncovers something even more shocking than murder. Darcy's new case is action packed. Readers may wonder how she manages to balance her stunt work with her investigations, but her Zen practice and her relationships with her brothers keep her grounded. Darcy's fans will enjoy this one.--Bibel, Barbara Copyright 2009 Booklist

In Dunlap's absorbing third mystery to feature San Francisco stuntwoman Darcy Lott (after 2008's Hungry Ghosts), Darcy's lawyer brother, Gary, persuades Darcy to entertain Karen Johnson, a mysterious client of his. Karen claims to be in the midst of divorcing her former football star husband, who turns out to have known her as Alison. Later, Karen appears to commit suicide by jumping off a high-rise building onto a busy freeway. Why would Karen kill herself? As Darcy probes into Karen's past, she uncovers Karen had a number of false identities, possibly including Sonora Eades, the accused killer of a famous cookbook author stabbed 25 years earlier. Darcy, a practicing Buddhist, keeps recalling a koan question Karen mentioned during their brief acquaintance, "How do you step off the hundred-foot pole?" Dunlap's Zen-spirited crime-solver finds a complicated answer via a scary confrontation with an unexpected killer. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved