Publisher's Synopsis
Angelina Bonaparte is a woman on a mission: to find the truth. She's had enough of lies and deceit. Her twenty-plus year marriage to Mr. Bozo (no, she doesn't refer to him that way in front of their grown children or their grandchildren) is over, destroyed by his roving eye and pitiful excuses. She sheds her housewife attitude and clothes for sexy designer duds and a kick-ass approach to her new career as a private investigator. A 50-something hottie, Angie takes no prisoners in her quest for honesty.
Gracie Belloni, hugely pregnant with her fourth child, hires Angie to scope out the charges for lingerie, perfume and furs on her husband's Visa bill. Anthony, a.k.a Tony Baloney, hasn't brought a single goodie to Gracie. No sooner does Angie uncover a liaison between Tony and gold-digger Elisa Morano, than Elisa's body, shot and riddled with stab wounds, is discovered in the apartment building owned by Belloni.
Gracie adopts a stand-by-your-man position and pleads with Angie to work with Tony's lawyer, Bart Matthews, as part of the defense team. Torn between contempt for Tony and compassion for Gracie and the kids, Angie decides to sign on.
During the course of the investigation, she confronts some of her own demons. Her Sicilian-American family's Mafia ties are exposed by the media. She struggles to balance the pre-Friedan values of her upbringing as she makes her way in a post-feminist world. The faith of her childhood is challenged by religious bigotry and hatred.
But Angie meets more than just her inner demons as she searches for the truth of Elisa's death. She also encounters Jane Dunwoodie, who manages her home, family, and the Dunwoodie Insurance Agency while her husband, John, just plays; Bobbie Russell, the dishy gay man who took Elisa's job at the Dunwoodie Insurance Agency and who guides Angie as the investigation moves into the homosexual subculture of Milwaukee; Elisa's onetime friend and roommate, Marsha Cantwell, struggling to recover from Elisa's betrayal; Mrs. Lembke, the acute observer and busybody, who lived across the street from Elisa and Marsha.
And Wukowski, the attractive, but oppositional Milwaukee police detective assigned to the Morano homicide. ("Do they call you Wookie?" she asks him. "Only once," he responds.) Their relationship begins in confrontation and dislike, as Wukowski struggles with the emotional aftermath of the brutal torture and death of his former female MPD partner. He sets off all of Angie's warning bells from a marriage that shaped her into a woman she worked hard to reinvent after her divorce. Despite their initial antagonism, they feel the tingles of physical attraction and begin to realize that they're on the same team, searching for justice and truth in an unjust and untrue world.
Truth Kills offers a strong set of characters: some searching for honesty in a dishonest world and some sure that they alone know the truth, all explored within the metropolitan, yet small town atmosphere of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
