Cincinnati, October 1967 -- Eugene Geller, the handsome and popular Cantor of Rockdale Temple-located in the racially tense Avondale neighborhood of Cincinnati-disappears without a trace during a night of rioting in the "long, hot summer" of 1967. Was Gene a casualty of the riot? Has he run away with one of his paramours? Or has he been the victim of foul play by his long-suffering wife or an angry ex-lover or a jealous husband? Augusta McKee, Chair of the Opera Department at the Conservatory and amateur sleuth, is helping her husband, Chief of Detectives Malcolm Mitchell, unravel this mystery. Augusta is also in the midst of planning the Conservatory's spring opera, Mozart's The Magic Flute, a fairy tale of good and evil. Her wish is the opera's positive message and its multi-ethnic cast will help return hope and calm to her tense city. But her first-time ethnic casting of lead roles causes her to receive anonymous threatening notes-and worse. Malcolm and the police are close to solving the Geller case-but now Augusta's life is in imminent danger. How will they find and stop the person targeting her?