On the Fourth of July, Tess and her friends find a myserious brooch at the Wayfarers Inn. When Tess takes it to a jeweler for appraisal, it is stolen before he can find a clue about its origins. As the Inn crowd digs into the mystery, they learn that among their current guests are the descendants of a man suspected, one hundred and fifty years ago, of stealing this same brooch.

""Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked..." To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably-priced furniture, making a life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. Few people know he descends from a...