Tuesday, February 17. 11:40 a.m., corner of Vermont Avenue and Sunset Boulevard. A robber approached the victim from behind and put a knife to her stomach....

Stabbings, even fatal ones, are not uncommon in Los Angeles. But the stabbing death of Aggie Lasher - a vibrant young woman dedicated to helping others and, it seemed, deeply loved by everyone who knew her - was especially tragic.

For almost six years she has been obsessed by the mystery of her best friend's murder: If she had been with Aggie, would the killer have chosen another victim? Will the killer ever be caught?

When Molly's LAPD pal Detective Andy Connors shows her a locket found on the body of a dead man, suddenly the case seems solved. Molly had given that locket to Aggie. Still coiled inside it is the red-thread good-luck charm that Molly had brought back years ago from Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, a thread with the reputed mystical power to protect its wearer.

The presumed murderer - a good-looking aspiring actor named Randy Creeley - was found dead of an overdose in his shabby Hollywood apartment. But Molly has unanswered questions. And though she should be focused on her wedding, only weeks away, she is driven to find out more - about Creeley; about his nervous sister, Trina; about his missing girlfriend, Doreen. About Aggie, who, it turns out, didn't tell her best friend everything. The more Molly discovers, the more she wonders: Was Aggie's life snuffed out so an addict could shoot up? Or has Creeley been framed? What if Aggie was deliberately murdered by someone else, someone who is ready to kill again to ensure that his motives stay buried with Aggie and Randy Creeley?

Molly's search for the truth sends her scurrying for answers in an LA tourists seldom see. But closure is elusive, and seeking it can exact a stiff price - sometimes even a life.

Rochelle Krich's third Molly Blume mystery is irresistible: an inexorably compelling chiller.