In 1927 Toronto a woman artist is found dead. An accidental fall apparently—but Detective Paul Shenstone discovers she was the object of death threats.
When she fell from the scaffold she was working on, Nora Britton was painting a war memorial mural in Christ Church Grange Park. But some parishioners are outraged that the commission went to the wife of German native Herman Koch. In this third Roaring Twenties novel featuring Paul Shenstone, the police detective’s inquiries take 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 strong 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.”
