"Vancouver Post" gossip columnist Nicole Charles is only slightly put out when she discovers she's been downsized. She figures she's lucky to still have a job. It just means she needs to get a desk so she can work out of her apartment. But the desk she buys at auction proves to have more history than she'd anticipated, and the cache she finds in a secret compartment in that desk has links to a money-laundering ring, and an old school-mate. Will this be the story that lands Nicole a job on the news desk? Even while she struggles to solve the case, she wonders if she'll ever get the recognition she figures she deserves. "When Blood Lies" is the second novel in a series of mysteries featuring rookie reporter Nicole Charles.