A Difficult Woman

As the chief pathologist of pharmaceutical giant Bauer-Ritter, Anne Harriman is a star in her career. But for two weeks every year, she works at the public morgue to keep her license current. One night at the end of her stint, Anne is called to examine a body, and she’s stunned to recognize the murdered woman as her best friend, Giselle McKenzie, who was in town for an important conference.

Anne meets with resistance when she attempts to conduct further examination of Giselle’s body, and she fights to stay part of the investigation. While she focuses on finding Giselle’s murderer, her groundbreaking work at Bauer-Ritter is at risk of being exploited for all the wrong reasons. Meanwhile, her lover, Tom, tries to tamp down the growing panic at his university about the serial rapist.

Anne sits in on the police interrogation of Dominic Martin, with whom Giselle had been having an affair, and learns some upsetting information. After discovering evidence that a phone call was made to trade minister Paul Scanlon from Giselle’s car around the time of her death, Anne sets out to unravel his connection to the case. When the serial rapist strikes again, a new suspect is put forth.

Anne is mystified when Dominic opposes political independence for the French Pacific nations at the conference, and she begins to suspect that Giselle’s conspiracy-like theories may have had some basis in truth. At the tribunal hearing, Anne defends MacFarlane and is annoyed with Tom for not doing the same. The police set a trap for the rapist that may finally catch Giselle’s killer.