Penance

Twin Cities gumshoe Holland Taylor is the first to be called in for interrogation when a pivotal figure from his past is found murdered - a man he once threatened in front of a slew of witnesses. Reluctantly taking on the case, Taylor follows a trail that leads to the headquarters of gubernatorial candidate Carol Catherine (C.C.) Monroe. Beautiful and ambitious, C.C. has risen swiftly, helped by the apparent hit-and-run death of her opponent in a congressional race. Now she stands to become Minnesota's first woman governor.

But C.C. has a secret. A former lover with a compromising videotape is out to blackmail her. When C.C. hires Taylor to retrieve the tape, he finds a corpse three days dead in a thoroughly ransacked apartment.

As Taylor's investigations leads him deeper into the tangled web of urban politics, he finds a curious and furtive vulnerability in the candidate beneath her assured, charismatic surface. And when a third murder hits Taylor where it hurts, he becomes committed to a violent course of action that leads him toward an unexpected and decisive confrontation.