Frank May practices law in San Mateo, California. Much of his practice deals with estate planning -- wills, trusts, and related matters. So dead people are very much on his mind and the mind of his clients. But not, for the most part, unnatural deaths. Yet mysterious deaths, for some odd reason, seem to creep inevitably into his practice.

A young woman, Ashley Savage, is Frank's newest client. Her birth father, whom she never met and who played no role in her upbringing, has suddenly entered her life -- though very indirectly. He's created a trust for her, worth millions of dollars but whose origins are, to say the least, questionable. Dr. Langley Savage, Ashley's absentee father, had ministered for years to a wealthy old lady, Hortense Risley, who spent those last years in a hospital suite, all the time lavishing gifts on Dr. Savage. All this to the detriment of Hortense's four grandchildren, her closest relatives. Then Dr. Savage turns up dead -- shot in a hotel room in Palo Alto. And one of the grandchildren, Bobby Risley, claims to have fallen in love with Ashley Savage … sight unseen! As Ashley Savage's lawyer, Frank May is reluctantly drawn into the mystery that surrounds the death of Langley Savage -- a mystery with many surprising twists and turns.

The tenth entry in the Frank May mystery series, by Stanford law professor Lawrence M. Friedman. From Quid Pro Books.