Sunny is a tough, straight talking woman who sees herself as "unmarred by Estee Lauder." Her mother, on the other hand, gets fancied up to work in her garden. She is currently attached to husband number five (Sunny's father was number one, and the only one who wasn't rich.) At age 34, Sunny wants to know more about the father she lost as a child. But Mom doesn't want to talk about it; she never has.

After reading a story about the apparent suicide of Jerry Reynolds, who served with her father Johnson Childs, Sunny decides to take a look at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC. The problem is, John Child's name is missing from the memorial, and why won't Mom explain anything about his death?

When Sunny begins to contact the men who knew her father in Vietnam, she finds that no one wants anything to do with her. Especially if she brings up the term Hoa Hoa – then they really slam the door in her face. Sunny's boss and longtime family friend Gunnar Brushwood, helps her to sort out her father's past. The story she slowly uncovers is not pleasant; dad was involved in some pretty horrific things in Vietnam.

And as Sunny continues to pursue the truth about her father and an awful incident at Hoa Hoa, she attracts the attention of a man named Warren Messing. He, too, served with John Childs in Vietnam, but he doesn't want to sit around and tell old war stories. Warren Messing doesn't want any ugly stories popping up – he is in line to be the next director of the CIA.

Birmingham (who is Walter Sorrells) does a good job weaving the characters from the past (Vietnam) with the characters in the present (Atlanta). While John Child's story is quite terrible and hard to comprehend, the author makes his plight believable and his character is richer when we discover he wasn't perfect. Sunny learns some things about the dark side of human nature, but she also discovers the meaning of family. She is a well-drawn character and has the potential to carry her Peachtree Investigations into another good mystery.

--Martha Moore