Thornley Colton: Blind Detective

Wealthy, eccentric, and totally blind since birth, the gentleman who styles himself a problemist accepts only cases that catch his fancy-and never a penny for his trouble. Society murders, vanished fortunes, impossible alibis, and a deadly cargo hauled in from the far side of the world: he weighs them all in a Manhattan study lined with rare violins and curiosities, sifting clues through senses sharpened by darkness. A devoted secretary, rescued from the river years before, serves as his eyes; his slender ivory cane reads paper, polished wood, and human skin like the page of a printed book.

Eight intricate puzzles carry him into the gilded ballrooms, fashionable hotels, and shadowed back-rooms of pre-war New York-a city where breeding masks treachery and a well-bred smile may hide the steadiest hand on a revolver. Wits, not weapons, decide each case, and the man who has never seen a face proves the sharpest reader of them all.