Chicago, 1923. When jewels vanish from a locked opera box, the theft is only the beginning...

Kit Ashworth once graced Chicago's finest drawing rooms. Now she takes dictation for Patrick O'Malley, a disgraced ex-cop turned private investigator. Their arrangement suits them both—he needs someone who can navigate high society, and she needs work that won't ask questions about her fallen family fortune.

But when society matron Mrs. Ashford hires them to investigate her "stolen" jewelry, Kit suspects the theft was staged. The insurance investigator asking uncomfortable questions thinks so too—until he turns up dead in the opera house storage room.

Suddenly Kit and Paddy are caught between Chicago's glittering elite and its criminal underworld, where money laundering masquerades as cultural patronage and blackmail hides behind charity luncheons. Someone has turned the Chicago Lyric Opera into the perfect front for organized crime, and they'll kill to protect their secret.

As opening night approaches, Kit must use every skill she learned in finishing school—and a few she's picked up since her fall from grace—to unmask a killer before the final curtain falls on more than just the performance.

In Prohibition-era Chicago, even high culture has a dark side.

Perfect for readers who love Jacqueline Winspear, Louise Penny, and Rhys Bowen.

Book 2 in the O'Malley Investigations Mystery Series
Can be read as a standalone