The Damages - Shelley Costa

Five months after the events of No Mistaking Death, it's back to Carthage, Ohio, for private investigator Marian Warner. This time she's been hired to look into the disappearance of a beautiful, young courier for the local hospital lab...who turns up strangled. During the course of the murder investigation, Marian works her way down the list of doctors on the victim's route as a lab courier, discovering that one of them, an obstetrician, is being sued for medical malpractice.   

On a hunch that the crime and the court case are connected, Marian sits in on the trial, where she gets a potent introduction to medical malpractice litigation. Soon, she comes to realize that her old friend, Charlie Levitan, editor of the local paper, is slanting his editorials to boost sales, and the murder investigation begins to feel personal.  

Who was the dead woman blowing off when she was overheard on the phone the night of her disappearance? Why is a blank birth certificate among the dead woman's personal effects? Trips, pricey furniture-was the victim a blackmailer? In her hunt for the killer, Marian survives courtroom scenes, expert witnesses, Grange Ladies, man trouble, physician meltdown, watering hole locals, and-when she gets close to the truth-an attack on her life.