The Wrong Way Down

What begins as a courtesy call on his wife’s friend, Miss Julia Paxton, turns into another case for Henry Gamadge, Elizabeth Daly’s sleuth and expert in rare books. Miss Paxton presents Gamadge with a mystery: a framed etching that had always hung in the hallway of the Ashbury mansion has suddenly sprung an inscription dated 1793. Miss Paxton swears nothing had been written on that portrait before the previous Sunday. Did Iris Vance, a relative and professional medium, made it happen? And how? Henry Gamadge is pretty sure the solution to this mystery has nothing to do with the supernatural, but he can’t quite make out what it all means. Was it a joke? Petty larceny? Or is something much more dangerous going on, and has Gamadge somehow stumbled onto a criminal conspiracy? The Wrong Way Down is set in New York City in the mid-1940s.