Original Sins

Anibaddh Lyngdoh claims that she intends to introduce a new kind of silk to the floundering American silk industry. But her true reason as her old friend Grace MacDonald Pollocke discovers is far more personal. Grace now a Philadelphia portrait painter undertakes a perilous investigation that leads to the discovery of old sins and crimes and the commission of new ones. What laws may be brokenwhat sins and crimes committedin the service of a higher justice? Deceit forgery fraud perjury . . . even murder? This novel thrillingly evokes a nineteenth-century America not so different from the present: a time of stunning new technologies and financial collapse when religious and racial views collided with avowed principles of morality and law.