Nancy Pickard

Written with the wisdom and grace readers have come to expect from the award-winning author of "The Virgin of Small Plains," this brilliantly moving tale is one of family, murder, and redemptive love.

Jenny goes west to investigate the murder of a millionaire benefactor and his bizarre family when a cattle ranch in Kansas is left to the Port Frederick Civic Foundation.

Marie Lightfoot faces an unusually challenging case because this time it's personal -- painfully so, as it concerns the central mystery of her life: her parents' disappearance. "My dear Marie, Do you give any thought to life after death? They say that when dead people hover around the living, it is because they are stuck at the place where they died. They can't move on. I hope for your sake that doesn't happen to you, Marie, because I don't think...

"When Nurse Keate arrives at the Thatcher estate to care for a man with a bullet in his shoulder, she's told that he shot himself accidentally--but when the convalescing man is murdered soon thereafter, it becomes clear that the only "accident" was his not being fully killed the first time around. A murderer stalks the manor and yet the rest of the family isn't the slightest bit alarmed; instead, they seem intent on concealing the crime and adding...

From Wall Street and Greenwich Village to Chinatown, Harlem and beyond, the streets and skyscrapers of Manhattan are brimming with crimes and misdemeanors.