Rachel Gold blames it on her mother, Sarah, who convinced her to file what seemed like a simple age-discrimination case on behalf of Ruth Alpert, her mother's best friend. Ruth had been fired just shy of her sixty-third birthday by Beckmann Engineering, a corporate powerhouse known in St. Louis, both for its charitable contributions and vicious lawyers. The first hint that the case might not be so simple comes when a key witness is gunned down in a parking lot before Rachel's eyes. The second comes when Rachel learns that Ruth has knowledge of confidential information that could transform her simple age claim into a massive, multi-million-dollar conspiracy case spanning decades. With the help of her best friend, Benny Goldberg-the grossest (and funniest) law professor in America-the savvy and beautiful Rachel Gold struggles to make sense of a dark scheme hatched more than a fifty years ago, a conspiracy with a bloody trail of murder, mayhem, and treachery that implicates some of the wealthiest and most respected elder citizens in the country. These men have guarded their vile secret for half a century and will take whatever steps are necessary to protect it from disclosure. Michael A.

Kahn is the award-winning author of several novels, praised by Publishers Weekly for their "intelligent, breezy dialogue and clever plotting." A graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School, Mr. Kahn began his literary career writing freelance feature articles for Chicago Magazine while teaching fifth grade in the Chicago public schools. www.michaelakahn.com.