After winning the commission to paint a war memorial mural for Christ Church Grange Park, Nora Britton is found dead on the church floor. An accidental fall from the scaffold she was working on? So it seems, until police detective Paul Shenstone discovers that she has been the subject of parishioners’ death threats. Shenstone’s sleuthing takes him from slum to mansion, from speakeasy to laboratory to artist’s studio. The dead Nora becomes his obsession. His list of suspects keeps lengthening as he discovers in his city unexpectedly virulent religious and ethnic hatreds. His toughness, brains, and marksmanship will all be tested in his fight to do Nora justice.
“Why didn’t I speak up? At first, I was too shocked at seeing her lying crumpled on the floor of the chancel. In life, she didn’t give the impression of being a small woman. She had a quiet radiance that seemed to fill the space around her. But in death she looked no bigger than a child. A dead child — there is no more pitiful sight.”
