As we left Mallory in "The Man who cast two shadows", she was on a train. On a stormy day, three things happened somewhere. An idiot, Ira Wooley, got his hands broken and bloodied, a deputy got a heart attack and Babe Laurie was murdered.Augusta is going back to her house when she sees a strange in front of Henri Roth's Cottage. Knowing he was not there, she goes up to Charles Butler to invite him to her house. He's here for Mallory of course. Mallory is in jail under the suspicion she killed Laurie or gave the deputy his heart attack.

Instead, she's back to her childhood town. She's back for vengeance, you will soon see. She's back to know who actually killed her mother. At the same time, Augusta is the executrix of her mother's estate and wants Kathy to take what is righfully hers. But she doesn't know who killed her mother because while her mum was stoned to death she was in a closet. She couldn't hear anything because of the music and has no idea. She is setting traps for everyone. She knows that Ira Wooley, her childhood companion might know something. But how to get to him when he refuses to answer. Since the day Mallory's mum got murdered he never made any more progress.But his mum wants him to enter a program and Charles will help with that if he can make enough progress.

At the same time with Henri, Augusta and the sheriif's help, she sets a trap. New statues appear in the cemetary. They play tricks t make people talk. She knows it needed more than one person to stone her mother to death but how many and how could they be so dispassionate about it that no sound was made.

A quiet killing, that is what it was but WHY?

Like all the Mallory books and I've read all them, this one is good, really good. It is even better because now we know where KAthy is coming from, why she is so tough. How she was as a child, and what she could have been if her mother was not murdered. IT was needed for the rest of the books, to explain her complex character. In all of the books, the murders for Mallory have two motives, money or money.Which one should it be this time, or could it be something else?

One advice, buy it, borrow, go to the libray to get it. It will be worth the time!!!!!!