To squander the last dollar left in the Blackbird family fortune, my parents threw a lawn party that would have made Jay Gatsby proud. My father wore a moth-eaten dinner jacket and poured champagne while Mama offered marijuana cigarettes to the ne'er do wells of Philadelphia high society who'd come to see how far the mighty had fallen. At the party's climax, my parents shot off fireworks and presented the Blackbird family art collection to my sister Emma. The Blackbird furniture went to my sister Libby. Perhaps under the impression that I was the most responsible member of the family--which only means I'm the one who never entered a wet T-shirt contest-Mama and Daddy gave me the Bucks County farm. Then they blew the country for a sunny resort that catered to American tax evaders, leaving stardust in their wake and me with a delinquent property tax bill for two million dollars. This book was nominated for the Agatha Award for Best First Mystery of 2002, and won the RT award for Best First Mystery and was a finalist for the Daphne DuMaurier Award.