A Ticket to Die for — David J. Walker

Kirsten, the daughter of a cop and a former cop herself, is a private investigator with her own agency in Chicago. In fact, she met her husband, Dugan, at the police academy, but he dropped out and ended up in law school. Kirsten has persuaded him to help her out on a case once in a while, though he'd really rather not. The less he knows about her day-to-day investigative work the better. But Kirsten's latest case seems simple: A lawyer has hired her to find the friend of a client. This friend was a witness to a conversation between the lawyer and his client. The client has disappeared, and now the lawyer needs the witness. Kirsten asks Dugan to accompany her to the friend's workplace, an adult bookstore just southwest of the city near an underdeveloped stretch of a four-lane highway. A simple task. But when they arrive at Cousin Freddy's Adult Books, they find the cashier - the friend - dead in her chair, her neck broken. And suddenly their simple case is a whole lot more complicated and dangerous than they imagined.