Judge Deborah Knott and Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant are back home in Colleton County with all their family and courthouse regulars. But there are a few new faces as well. Lt. Sigrid Harald and her mother, Anne, a well-known photographer, are down from New York to visit Anne's ailing mother, Mrs. Lattimore. When the group gathers for dinner at Mrs. Lattimore's Victorian home, they meet the enigmatic Martin Crawford, an ornithologist who claims to...

A relic of Manhattan's Gilded Age, when Edith Wharton and Henry James chronicled its inhabitants, the Erich Bruel House on Gramercy Park contained three floors of glorious art-and one Christmas corpse. While the mansion was being decorated with antique ornaments, and preparations were being made for a lavish holiday party, someone killed the obnoxious art historian Dr. Roger Shambley. Lieutenant Sigrid Harald of the New York Police Department comes...

Sigrid is still reeling from the untimely death of her lover, acclaimed painter Oscar Nauman, when she is called to investigate the deaths of two homeless men in the West Village. The police at first assume an overdose, until they realize that one of the men shows no signs of drug use. Then when containers of poisoned takeout food are found nearby, Sigrid's case is suddenly much more complicated. As Sigrid investigates, she uncovers an intriguing...