Lia Matera: Face Value (USA 2021)

From the Publisher:
A lawyer is drawn into a dangerous case after a love guru shakes up San Francisco in this mystery by the author of A Hard Bargain.
Leaving an expensive firm and toxic work environment behind her, attorney Laura Di Palma has opened her own practice. She's eager for business, and she's not about to turn away fellow lawyer Margaret Lenin.

Margaret had been struggling with a midlife crisis. Full of deep questions, she sought answers from a spiritual master, a guru by the name of Brother Mike. He led videotaped group therapy sessions to help his followers explore their spirituality and sexuality. The trouble is those tapes are now available in the XXX sections of video stores...

Taking the case pushes Laura far out of her comfort zone. She needs help from her ex, PI Sandy Arkelett, and their investigation leads them from stuffy boardrooms to strip clubs, porno shops, a private fantasy island -- and a grisly murder scene...

"Absorbing... Multiple murders and delightfully complex characters help carry a plot that moves from a striptease bar to a guru's mysterious island retreat... A fine, intelligent story." -- USA Today

"This latest Laura Di Palma adventure is no exception to the tight plotting, good characterizations, and page turning suspense that have typified the earlier entries in the series and that make Matera one of the best contemporary mystery novelists... . Highly recommend... Matera is too good to miss." -- Booklist

Lia Matera: Face Value. A Laura Di Palma Mystery. The Mysterious Press / Open Road Media, ISBN: 9781504066723 (June, 2021), eBook, 2411 KB (ca. 224 p.), $7.99.

Lia Matera: Face Value (UK 1996)

From the Publisher:
LAURA DI PALMA, San Francisco lawyer, and champion of not yet-lost cases, embarks on one of the most dangerous and controversial cases of her career. Investigating Californian guru Brother Mile, Laura finds herself caught in a minefield of dubious morality and multiple murder where she can take nothing and no one at face value.

'Lia Matera just keeps getting better' - SARA PARETSKY
'Unputdownable' - MAIL ON SUNDAY
'Di Palma belongs in the same league as Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky' - BOOKLIST
'Breathlessly quick and usually unexpected' - THE TIMES

Lia Matera: Face Value. A Laura Di Palma Mystery. Virago, ISBN: 1860491138 (March, 1996), 221 p., £5.99.

Lia Matera: Face Value (USA 1995)

From the Publisher:
"Di Palma, a complex and very likable detective, is in top form in Face Value." -- Kathi Maio, Newsday
It's been ten months since Laura Di Palma was fired from her high- powered San Francisco law firm for doing pro bono work -- -without the firm's consent. Now, the tenacious attorney has come back a solo act. With an office too far south of Market Street to be fashionable, Laura will take any case that pays the rent. But she's not prepared for the one that walks through her door...

The client is a former colleague who comes to Laura with some shocking charges. It seems the woman is involved with a New Age guru whose spiritual guidance includes videotaping group sex sessions and then "reimaging" the participants on his computer to reveal their auras. Now the tapes, sans auras, have begun showing up in local porn parlors.

With the help of Sandy Arkelett, a smooth-talking private eye -- and former flame -- Laura starts investigating. But when her client suddenly drops the charges and six strippers are murdered, she realizes there is more to the story than a few libelous videos. On a trail that spirals from a private fantasy island to sex club back rooms and corporate boardrooms, Laura is working a precarious case that could put her new career on the map -- or kill her trying.

"ABSORBING... Multiple murders and delightfully complex characters help carry a plot that moves from a striptease bar to the guru's mysterious island retreat... A FINE, INTELLIGENT STORY." -- Anita Manning, USA Today

"LIA MATERA JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER." -- Sara Paretsky

Lia Matera: Face Value. A Laura Di Palma Mystery. Pocket Books, ISBN: 0671888404 (June, 1995), 246 p., $5.99.

Lia Matera: Face Value (USA 1994)

From the Publisher:
"Lia Matera just keeps getting better." -- Sara Paretsky
Hailed by critics for her brains, determination, and guts, San Francisco Bay Area lawyer and champion of not-yet-lost causes, Laura Di Palma, is back - and gutsier than ever. Laura's history of high-profile pro bono cases not only put her in the headlines but also recently cost her the position she had at a conservative law firm. Now, in Face Value, she is going it alone in private practice.

Free from bureaucratic constraints at last, Laura takes on the most controversial - and dangerous - case of her career. When a distraught and disillusioned former devotee of northern California guru Brother Mike levels startling charges against him, a reluctant Laura eventually agrees to take the case. According to her new client, the spiritual leader was actually leading his unsuspecting flock into a terrible deceit, going so far as to tamper with video-tapes of his followers, which he then distributed as commercial pornography.

Before Laura can even properly set up shop, her investigation sweeps her from the busy city streets of San Francisco to places beyond her wildest imaginings, where she meets a cast of mysterious people - all oddly influenced by Brother Mike. She begins at a striptease bar where, searching for clues, she instead finds herself face to face with seven murder victims. Her next stop is the guru's very own, very remote, but not-so private island, where she witnesses scenes almost as shocking as the mass murder itself.

Back home she is "welcomed" by a series of deadly threats from someone eager to see her drop the investigation. But Laura has come too far to turn back now. With the help of private detective Sandy Arklett, her former colleague and close personal friend, Laura stays on course until she finds herself directly in the killer's line of fire and learns the final truth of this case: Nothing and no one can be taken at face value.

Edgar Allan Poe Award nominee Lia Matera has pulled out all the stops in Face Value, her most dramatic and masterfully.

Lia Matera: Face Value. A Laura Di Palma Mystery. Simon & Schuster, ISBN: 0671741977 (February, 1994), 224p., $20.00.