The enigmatic performer known as the Body Artist takes the stage at Chicago's Club Gouge and allows her audience to use her naked body as a canvas for their impromptu illustrations. V. I. Warshawski watches as people step forward, some meek, some bold, to make their mark. The evening takes a strange turn when one woman's sketch triggers a violent outburst from a man at a nearby table. Quickly subdued, the man, an Iraqi war vet, leaves the club. Days...

Herbal apothecary store owner Aleksandra Daniels investigates the death of a local artist in Bellamy Bay after her best friend, Celest, is implicated in the crime.

Laura Magee is spending the summer in an art gallery in the southern New Jersey shore town of Safe Harbor. When a dispute over a painting by a man named Rafferty leads to the murder of one of her customers and puts Laura herself in danger, she must discover the identity of the killers and find out what makes a painting valuable enough to kill for. Then the FBI becomes involved, and Laura realizes that this crime has more layers than she ever imagined....