In 19th Century London, a wealthy young widow likes to play matchmaker, arranging evenings between widows and eligible men, then exposing the men so they have to marry. A certain bachelor decides to play a trick by seducing her, then proposing, knowing well she will say no, thus showing up her to ridicule: one rule for men, another for women. It happens too, but there's a twist.

"My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and I was born. Instead, they returned to Ireland when I was four ... When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." So begins the...

Gossip columnist Amanda Dart gets a taste of her own medicine when a photograph arrives in her office showing her in bed with a married man. The sender threatens to make the photo public unless Amanda pays. PI Stone Barrington is hired to find the blackmailer. By the author of New York Dead.