The story begins in Idaho, where celebrated horse owner and trainer H.R. Geiger has just died. His estate can't be settled until the book collection of his late wife, Candice, has been assessed. Enter Janeway, who discovers cheaper reprints cropping up among her priceless, mint-condition first editions (Dunning's descriptions of these, especially the children's stuff, are wonderfully juicy), suggesting theft and hasty substitutions. As is his habit, Janeway soon expands his mandate to an investigation of her mysterious death 20 years earlier. (Was she murdered by someone aware of her fatal allergy to peanuts?) Although Candice seems to have cast a spell over everyone she met, her marriage to this much older man was not happy; he, it seems, had potency problems --- hence her affairs and, ultimately, the "last fling" of the title.

When wealthy horse trainer H. R. Geiger dies, Denver bookman CliffJaneway encounters the legacy of the man's wife,Candice, a true bookwoman who left behind an assortment of rare first-edition children's books. Sent to assess the collection,Janeway soon finds that several titles are missing, replaced by cheap reprints--while other hugely expensive pieces remain.Why would a thief take one priceless book and leave an equally valuable volume on the shelf?. Suspecting foul play, Janeway follows the trail of Candice's shadowy past to California's Golden Gate and Santa Anita racetracks, where he signs on as a racehorse hot walker. Eavesdropping on the chatter among the hands, he doesn't like what he hears. And when he goes to the house where Candice died to look for answers, Janeway finds much more than he bargained for.