To catch a murderous theater impresario, a young woman takes a deadly new role

The note discovered beside Rosaleen Wright's hanged body is full of reasons justifying her suicide—but it lacks her trademark vitality and wit, and, most importantly, her signature. So the note alone is far from enough to convince her best friend Jane that Rosaleen took her own life. Instead, Jane suspects Rosaleen's boss, Luther Grandison, a man famous for his work for stage and screen. To the world at large, he's powerful and charismatic, but Rosaleen's letters to Jane described a duplicitous, greedy man who would no doubt kill to protect his secrets.

Intent to uncover evidence against him, Jane takes a job as Grandison's secretary; her friend Francis soon joins her in the endeavor, gaslighting, manipulating, and impersonating his way into Grandison's inner circle. But as the duo draw closer to the truth, they come nearer still to their own grisly ends, tangling with a man whose disregard for human life is matched only by his skillful ability to continually avoid suspicion.