Backstab — Elaine Viets

Six feet tall in flats, sleek, sexy Francesca Vierling is a brash columnist for a big-time St. Louis newspaper who makes her living by knowing the story behind the scenes--the secrets the other papers miss. But every secret has its price, and when her friends and sources begin turning up dead, Francesca finds herself fighting a new kind of deadline....

It's winter in St. Louis. The city's ethnically mixed population shares the snow, fights for parking spaces, and smells the ever-present odor of beer wafting from the breweries. But for Francesca the violent deaths of two men--an elderly barkeep in a landmark St. Louis saloon and a colorful home remodeler--have plunged her into the stifling heat of a murder investigation. Now, from neat little houses with Virgin Marys in their yards to an underworld of transvestite nightclubs, Francesca is desperately searching St. Louis to identify a killer--who has already chosen her.