Shadowed by a detective

About Shadowed by a detective

Shadowed by a Detective by Virginia Champlin is a detective novel written in the late 19th century. It centers on the glamorous and mysterious Ada Ricard, whose brazen abduction from a New York masked ball ignites a chain of jealousy, pursuit, and scandal involving her wealthy suitor Willie Saunders, the dashing Colonel Edward Forster, and rival forces of private and official policing. The opening of Shadowed by a Detective follows Ada’s sudden kidnapping by three “Sioux” masqueraders during her ball, her secret transfer by carriage to Yorkville, a night crossing of the East River, and a rendezvous with Colonel Forster, who spirits her aboard his yacht, the Gleam. Spurned by the police chief, the frantic Saunders hires the private firm Robertson Brothers & Co. and races after the yacht in the steamer Firefly; in a foggy night near Staten Island, a collision at the harbor channel is followed by a woman’s cry and the Gleam’s abrupt departure. Soon after, laborers find a young woman’s body weighted by a tar barrel; an autopsy concludes she was killed before entering the water. Identified at the morgue as Ada Ricard, the death draws official scrutiny, and Saunders is urgently summoned by the police, setting the stage for the investigation.

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