Blue Place

"It's hard to overpraise the taut plotting and broad intelligence of this thriller. . .Smart narative moves. . .tartly modulated prose that moves fluidly. . .Griffith seems destined to add to her laurels with this swank turn on the detective genre."--"Washington Post Book World

"Griffith has a fine way with character and a sure talent."--"Los Angeles Times

"A hero as sexy and iconic as televion's Xena. . .At once appalling and awe-inspiring, Aud is a bracing amaigam of fire and ice, of the New South and the Old World. She's a stirring inductee into the sisterhood of lady law. Or lawless, as the case may be."--"Village Voice

A police lieutenant with the elite "Red Dogs" until she retired at twenty-nine , Aud Torvigen is a rangy six-footer with eyes the color of cement and a tendency to hurt people who get in her way. Born in Norway into the failed marriage between a Scandinavian diplomat and an American businessman, she now makes Atlanta her home, luxuriating in the lush heat and brashness of the New South. She glides easily between the world of silken elegance and that of sleaze and sudden savagery, equally at home in both; functional, deadly, and temporarily quiescent, like a folded razor.

On a humid April evening between storms, out walking just to stay sharp, she turns a corner and collides with a running woman, Catching the scent of clean, rain-soaked hair, Aud nods and silently tells the stranger Today, you are lucky, and moves on—when behind her house explodes, incinerating its sole occupant, a renowned art historian. When Aud turns back, the woman is gone.