One thing about Kinsey is that when she feels that there is a miscarriage of justice going on she will work night and day to correct it. As she delves into the files and lives of the people involved, Kinsey is met with deceit, deception, misdirection, and hostility. Kinsey decides to take the case because she truly believes that Nikki is not guilty and that there is a murderer who got away with murder not once, but twice. The coincidence is too much to miss, but rather than appearing to clear Nikki of her husband's murder, Detective Dolan believes that Nikki is guilty of not one but two murders. Not only was Laurence Fife killed with powdered oleander, but a young twenty-four-year-old accountant in West Los Angeles died four days later of the same poison. After visiting her old friend, Con Dolan, at the police station where she is able to review the case files, Kinsey discovers that there was something more after all to the case.

Kinsey is not entirely sure she wants the case, but agrees to look into it a little bit to see if there is anything that did not come out at the trial.

Nikki Fife claims to be innocent of the crime and says she waited until she was released from prison so that she could find someone who would really help her to find the true killer of her husband. The murder Kinsey Millhone is asked to solve is eight years old, and Kinsey is doubtful that there is anything further to add to the case, but agrees to look into it as it is unlikely for a recently released prisoner on parole would ask to have things stirred up if she were really the guilty party.

A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton