Having inherited the cases of her deceased mentor Paddy Reilly, private investigator Molly Murphy is following philandering husbands, tracking down runaway debutantes and working in a sweatshop to discover who is purloining dress designs. Then a woman's body is fished out of the East River and Molly fears it is the missing society girl everyone is talking about. Then Molly's sometimes beau, police captain Daniel Sullivan, reveals that another corpse...

"Molly Murphy--now Molly Sullivan--is a year into her marriage, expecting her first child, and confined to the life of a housewife. The most important decision Molly faces these days is whether the lace curtains need cleaning, and she's restless and irritable in the heat of a New York summer and the enforced idleness of pregnancy. So when a trip to the post office brings a letter addressed to her old detective agency asking her to locate a missing...