As Pretty Does

When does loyalty become accessory to murder?

The five Sinclair sisters lead a fairytale existence in the modeling school their mother founded in Cheyenne, Wyoming - until her murder in the summer of 1955 prompts them to hire private investigator Heebs Kelly and his little dog Chaucer.

The police have written Eleanor Sinclair's death off as self inflicted based on the quantity of tranquilizers and diet pills she'd swallowed. They bristle at the suggestion anyone else was involved, but Heebs, as long on courage as he is unfazed by authority, soon comes to believe they missed things.

The victim, once a minor league New York model, was an arrogant tyrant with zero interest in being a mother. All her daughters (three singles and identical twins) had reasons to resent her. So did a few others. Then a second murder, more brutal than Eleanor's, sends Heebs in new directions where lies swirl as thickly as grit kicked up by the Wyoming wind.

As he closes in on Eleanor's killer, he must navigate the shifting alliances of the five beautiful Sinclair sisters, some of them hiding secrets and one possibly a murderer more than willing to strike again.