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PI Stella Hardesty lives in the cozy, backwoods community of Prosper, Missouri; her specialty is curing men who are abusing their spouses or girlfriends. She employs unethical methods such as interrogating, beating, and if the situation warrants, killing. The wealthy, snobbish Priss Porter beseeches Stella to help her dispose of a corpse lying in her car trunk. When Stella refuses, Priss threatens to blackmail her with photographs taken of her menacing Ferg Rohossen with a claw hammer. Stella continues to stand her ground. Soon afterwards, Priss and her brother Liman disappear. Stella and her partner Chrissy Shaw investigate the disappearances and uncover a scandalous male prostitution ring that leads to more mayhem and murder.

Product Description: When Prosper homegirl turned big-city businesswoman Priss Porter returns to town with a body in her trunk, she calls Stella Hardesty to dispose of it. Her uppity ways don't convince Stella to take the job, and Priss attempts to blackmail her with a snapshot of Stella doing what she does best: curing woman-beaters by the use of force.

Stella refuses to cooperate and goes home, only to hear later that Priss and her brother, Liman, have gone missing after calling in a disturbance. Stella is implicated when Sheriff "Goat" Jones discovers the scarf she left behind at the house. He warns her to stay local but Stella and her partner, Chrissy Shaw, go looking for Priss in Kansas City, where they discover that she runs an unusual business. When Priss herself—along with two other bodies—turns up in a pond belonging to one of Stella's ex-clients, Stella must investigate a host of suspects, including a crooked but libidinous female judge, a coterie of jealous male escorts, and a Marxist ex-professor.

(Source: Minotaur Books)