Beauty, professional baseball, and homicide…

Baltimore in the spring of 1897: the lovely and enigmatic young actress, Fanny Darlington, discovers a corpse sprawled across the back alley stage door of the Academy of Music.

The victim, a large man dressed in spats and an expensive overcoat, has been bludgeoned in the head and shot. The reason for the two different forms of attack is unknown, and so is the motive for the killing, because the body is still wearing a gold stick pin and watch chain. Whatever this might be, it’s not a robbery gone wrong.

When Fanny is identified as a prime suspect, Frank Van Sant steps in to help. Manager of the famous Diamond Caf and a devoted fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Frank likes to imagine himself as a bit of an amateur detective. He’ll need more than an amateur’s skill though, as he’s drawn into a bloody mystery interwoven with the desperate life of a runaway slave.

Set against a punishing baseball season with the Dead Ball Era’s brightest stars, John Thomas Everett takes us back to the turbulent city of Plug Ugly Ball with a follow-up novel that knocks one out of the park.