Mystery-solving criminal lawyer Crang returns to investigate the disappearance of two rare books.

Fletcher Marshall is a Toronto antiquarian book dealer, internationally respected in the business. One night, someone blows the safe in his office and makes off with the contents, which include an infamous forged first edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese that is in itself a collector's item. Fletcher, who was still in the process of verifying the book, doesn't even know whether it was the real thing or a clever forgery (of a forgery). But...