I did not foresee the solution to this 8th book in the Gamadge series at all! It's the summer of 1943 & Henry is in NYC while his wife Clara is off in Long Island (there are delicate hints that she is in "an interesting condition" as they used to say). He gets embroiled in this case, which has minimal recourse to his expertise in documents & books, and brings it off brilliantly. ( )

I did not foresee the solution to this 8th book in the Gamadge series at all! It's the summer of 1943 & Henry is in NYC while his wife Clara is off in Long Island (there are delicate hints that she is in "an interesting condition" as they used to say). He gets embroiled in this case, which has minimal recourse to his expertise in documents & books, and brings it off brilliantly. ( )

Gamadge is consulted by a nice (but rather naïve) young woman from Verrmont who had met a nice man named Crenshaw who lent her a volume of Shakespeare with some erased markings suggesting he identified with Caliban. He had disappeared but it now turns out he had gone to New York City and died rather quickly from leukemia. Before Gamadge can learn more, the young woman is brutally murdered. Then it appears that Crenshaw had a wife (he had seemed to be completely alone) -- a rather sour woman who shows up to claim his estate --and a pretty young niece who decides to stay in New York (supposedly to be near her boyfriend in the Navy.) My recollection was the impersonation was involved --which was correct. Daly's tendency to last minute unexpected solutions this time actually involves two changes, one the identity of the murderer and two the identity of the woman for whom he is doing the crime. ( )