A Toast Before Dying

Murder casts a shadow over the soul of Harlem....

When she's not studying for her master's or dropping in on her father's jazz gigs, ex-cop Mali Anderson checks out the scene at Harlem's smoky Half-Moon Bar.  She wasn't there for singer-bartender Thea Morris's birthday party, but someone else was—someone who shot Thea to death outside in the alley.  Was it her boyfriend, now sitting in jail on suspicion of murder? His sister insists he's innocent—and wants her friend Mali to clear his name.

Thea herself is a mystery: a lonely beauty in an apartment too deluxe for a woman living on tip money, with a gamut of lovers from an aspiring actor to an ambitious politician.  It will take all Mali's savvy—and sources from street-corner buzz to uptown cocktail chat—to unravel Thea's life and death.  And it will take her every survival instinct to catch a killer who will kill again to keep a deadly secret.