Collected here for the first time are Davidson's remarkable mystery tales, including: the 1840s murder investigations of New York's chief constable, Jacob Hays; a sinister lesson in New England thrift; a bride who disappears on her wedding day; a slavetrader and a deal gone terribly wrong; treachery in a nursing home; a greedy antiquarian repents his ways; expatriates who will kill for a little peace and quiet; and much ado about an exiled earl, Albanian Trotskyites, the Mafia, New Amsterdam river pirates, and the aspiring hooligans known as the Nafia (who "control all the gumball and India nut machines south of Vesey Street").