Ahead of the Press Publishing

With the arrival of a new addition to the Kerr family, both Hugh and Ellen pledged that they would take three months off to spend time with the baby. That promise did not last one week. Although officially on maternity leave, when a schoolteacher appears at the office asking for her help in making a decision on whether or not she should use her retirement money to invest in a flower shop, thus fulfilling her lifelong dream, Ellen agrees to accept the assignment with the assistance of Mary Wade. Hugh’s involvement in deciding to take on a new client comes against his better judgment and is destined to involve him in ways he finds difficult to explain. While half the Kerr gang works on the viability of a flower shop, the other half finds themselves in investigating the murder of a once-famous architect. His granddaughter, Evelyn Wentz, whom Hugh had previously met while unwisely pursuing a whim, is charged with the crime. With motive, means and opportunity, her case is complicated by two disparate factors: her alluring emerald-green eyes and the fact a priceless collection of emeralds has disappeared from her grandfather’s safe. Discovering the theft, district attorney B. B. Bond quickly assumes the synthetic emeralds left in place of the real ones were placed there by Miss Wentz, whom he unhesitatingly charges with second degree murder. In an investigation that proves unusually complex, supplemented with details concerning the propagation and sale of orchids, the appearance of ghosts, mistaken identities, the threat of retribution and fireworks in the courtroom, the young woman’s fate hangs on the jury’s decision of who and what to believe.