Not Exactly a Brahmin

Telegraph Avenue ain't what it used to be now that gentrification has gotten under way. But Jill Smith, the junk food-loving, smart and savvy Berkeley cop, hasn't changed. Chugging along in her vintage VW to fetch a pint of chocolate chocolate shower ice cream, she runs smack into a case of murder. A local philanthropist's Cadillac has crashed going down the steepest hill in town. Its lifeless owner lies faceup in the rain, and cuts in the brake lines prove this is no accident. Jill's best suspects are young, ambitious and definitely upwardly mobile. But her best bet for a motive is one of the great class levelers: a hunger for love, a love of money, and, lust for vengeance.