Years ago, Lurleen helped the NAACP investigate lynchings. She stopped when she met her husband, but never forgot the work...or the caution it required. After his death, Lurleen finds herself struggling to find purpose.

She travels to New York without a plan. But what she finds there might help her face her past—and finally chart her future.

A powerful story about justice, courage, and facing one's true self.

"'Still Life 1931' by Kris Nelscott (Kristine Kathryn Rusch), based on Hotel Room (1931) [a painting by Edward Hopper], was perhaps the best story in the collection [In Sunlight or in Shadow, edited by Lawrence Block], telling the story of Lurleen, a white volunteer/informant for the NAACP at the beginning of the Great Depression."

—New York Journal of Books