Tainted Love

If it's a tainted love, it's likely you must run.Rachel Stern, a Seattle PI, performs background checks for women who want to learn about men they are dating. When her new client, Monica, claims blithely that there's nothing to find about the man she loves, Rachel quickly discovers that's not true.

But Rachel cannot find Monica to warn her. Rachel's search leads her into the Seattle community of counselors who work with people who have suffered domestic abuse. Her inability to locate Monica reawakens the trauma and failure that led Rachel to leave her profession as a counselor and become an investigator, believing she could better protect women as a PI. Then the twists and tangles that Rachel unwinds lead to a murder that Seattle police cannot solve. Rachel has to put everything she believes on the line and take radical action.

In her search for Monica, Rachel vividly describes Seattle in the year 2001: Capitol Hill and its relaxed hipster world, the partner dance community, the artsy community of Fremont, the darker edges of more transient spheres.

Content warning: Tainted Love explores issues of domestic abuse, with narratives of off-page violence against women and spousal abuse. The narrative also describes power exchange dynamics, alcoholism, abortion (off-page), and off-page murder.

Tainted Love is the second Rachel Stern mystery, following a year after the events of Hard Rain.