NIGHT WORK

Reunited with both her work partner, Al Hawkin, and her domestic partner, Lee Cooper, detective Kate Martinelli seems ready to get back to solving cases for the San Francisco Police Department—work that, unfortunately, threatens once again to cross the boundary between workplace and home front. While chasing down the killer of James Larsen, wife beater, she finds his abused wife, Emily, at a shelter served by Roz Hall, feminist, minister, and partner to Maj Freiling, Lee’s best friend. Roz, although in the middle of a doctoral dissertation on “Manifestations of the Violent Warrior Goddess in the Hebrew Bible,” has time not only to inveigle Kate into a second abused-woman case—that of Pramilla Mehta, a child bride who may have been burned to death by her in-laws—but to bring down on the SFPD a hailstorm of criticism from the press for investigating the death of the abuser before that of the abused. Police procedure must cohabit with political action, as Kate comes home from interviewing witnesses to coffee and dessert with Roz and Maj. Where, wonders Kate, does political action end and vigilante justice begin? She finds a second corpse—that of Matthew Banderas, rapist—handcuffed and marked with the signature stun-gun burn found also on Larsen and on victims of the Ladies of Perpetual Disgruntlement, feminist scourges who, until now, have subjected their misogynist victims to discomfort and ridicule but no injury. Kate’s passion, and King’s (With Child, 1996, etc.), brings new urgency to a familiar story about merging personal conviction with professional duty. (Author tour)