The Ultimate Exit Strategy

A Virginia Kelly Mystery, Book 4 - Tensions at the investment firm where Virginia Kelly toils are through the roof: a lucrative buy-out offer from a competing company has partners and associates at odds. Easy street? You have to be on "the" list. Then, during a companywide merger pitch, Whytebread's CEO Wes Winslow falls ill at the podium and dies that evening. Food poisoning? Or murder?




The entrance of police detective Cassandra Hope, an ex-girlfriend, puts Virginia in the middle of the investigation. If it's murder, the deal falls through. Virginia sees it as her duty to help solve the crime. Suspects multiply: plenty of people were angry with the CEO, including a charmingly flirtatious golden boy with excellent golf scores, a tediously jealous wife, and a cohort of fringe employees who are too old, too gay, too brown, or too female to be taken seriously at the firm.




Cassandra wants the inside dirt and, though angered by her presumptuous demands, Virginia still can't say no to anything Cassie wants. With a multi-million dollar payoff at stake, Virginia agrees to be the detective's eyes and ears. But can Virginia trust anyone? Including rekindled flames for Cassandra?




Nikki Baker, the first Black voice in lesbian mystery fiction, was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award for The Lavender House Murder, the second Virginia Kelly title in this series.






"Like Baker's other books, The Ultimate Exit Strategy is too good to miss." - Megan Casey, The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel




"Baker has produced a winning character in Ginny Kelly ... Read it by the fire one cold autumn night, then smugly recommend Nikki Baker to your friends." - Deneuve


"In the Game marks the auspicious debut of a black writer who brings us a sharp, funny and on-the-mark murder mystery. " - Northwest Gay & Lesbian Reader