It is March, 1929. Soon after the adventure of Wintery Discontent, Cyrus Skeen is summoned by his father, Garnett Skeen, to travel to New York City to take care of his mother's trust fund business. Reluctantly, Skeen agrees, and leaves from Oakland, California for the transcontinental journey. Dilys, his wife, sees him off. The trip is uneventful, but in New York he meets an opera diva, Brianna O'Quill, who falls in love with him. And that love causes two murders, and perhaps even three. He has not returned to New York since opening his detective agency in San Francisco in 1923. He notes many changes in the city, and his love for Dilys Jones, his artist wife, whom he has had to leave behind, is tested. During one of her performances at the Metropolitan Opera, he goes backstage and kisses the diva's hand. She interprets the gesture as an invitation to pursue him, which she does even though she knows he is married and in love with his wife, Dilys. But a rival for her attentions is jealous and attempts to murder Skeen - or O'Quill...or anyone.