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Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett was born in Almansa (Spain) in 1951. In 1997, she was awarded the Feminino Lumen prize for the best female writer in Spain. She subsequently launched her Petra Delicado series, which quickly turned her into one of Spain's most popular and loved crime writers.

"A superlative police procedural."-The Washington Post

A detested television journalist specializing in muckraking has been murdered. Inspector Petra Delicado and her sentimental sidekick Garzon are thrown into the ruthless world of show business, high society, and belligerent celebrities, where public and private lives meet in an explosive and deadly mix. In this new installment in the Petra Delicado series, Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett proves once more why she was recently named best female writer in Spain, and gives further evidence for the success of this series both in her native country and abroad.

Kirkus Reviews

Inspector Petra Delicado (Dog Day, 2006) investigates the case of a TV gossipmonger whose ratings were equaled only by the number of suspects with a motive for his murder. Someone must really have wanted Ernesto Valdes dead, since his throat was slit after he was shot decisively in the head. All signs point to a professional hit. But who hired the hit man? When Inspector Moliner and Sgt. Rodr'guez, originally assigned to the case, are reassigned to look into the murder of the Health Inspector's alleged lover, it falls to Petra and Sgt. Ferm'n Garz-n. Valdes knew so many unsavory secrets about so many people, and was willing to spill so many of them on the air or demand payment for keeping them quiet, that the field is wide open. And apart from the obligatory personal and domestic complications-especially her sister Amanda, who seems determined to avenge her estranged husband's adultery by sleeping with every police officer in Barcelona-Petra's inquires are complicated by the high mortality rate among her witnesses, her growing suspicion that the Health Minister may connect both cases and her reluctant certainty that no one person could possibly have killed all those victims. Overcoming the understandable hostility of her suspects and her pardonable national pride-"This was Spain, and we were not used to such levels of promiscuity"-Petra patiently pursues each lead until every single murderer is brought to book.