When a man offers 1940s private investigator Maggie Sullivan twice her usual fee to look into a "possible" jewelry theft from his hotel safe, she's skeptical - until a maid's body tumbles out of a trash can and a jeweler known for high quality fakes is murdered. Does a hotel guest who vanished without a trace hold a piece of the puzzle? Or does it have to do with the Polish count and his family fleeing the start of WW2 in Europe? Could the cops be right that it's all a trick devised by her client? More at ease in Dayton, Ohio's, streets and alleyways than in the posh Hotel Canterbury, and...

Days before the Pearl Harbor attack plunges the U.S. into World War II, private eye Maggie Sullivan is hired to find a missing engineer in Dayton, Ohio. Has Gil Tremain been kidnaped, or has he turned traitor - to his employer and maybe his country? As Maggie pieces together his last movements, she finds there are secrets the man's ex-wife and his employers don't want uncovered. Maggie herself is attacked and an innocent witness is murdered. The ruthlessness of her opponent - or opponents - becomes even clearer when there's an attempt to abduct Tremain's young daughter. Still more chilling,...