This is Liz Bugg’s second novel featuring the immensely likeable Toronto PI Calli Barnow. Barnow, a lesbian, and not nearly as tough and combative as she often tries to present herself, goes all mushy when marriage to the lovely Jess appears to be a sure thing. Meanwhile, in her professional life, investigation of business fraud in an advertising agency goes nasty when someone knocks off a couple of employees.

Bugg gives her storytelling a smooth sense of pace. It carries the action nicely until the long denouement when heated events run away from the author’s control.