By a Spider's Thread

Baltimore private investigator Tess Monaghan, who first appeared in Baltimore Blues, is hired by a city furrier whose family has vanished. Police see no crime, since everything points to his wife leaving on her own. Mark Rubin wants Tess to find his wife and their three children, but he parcels out what he knows slowly and reluctantly, and Tess is unsure whether to trust him.

Rubin describes his marriage to Natalie as happy and stable, so her sudden departure with the children makes no sense to him. Tess relies on a loose network of investigators across the country and gradually traces the family as they move from state to state and town to town. A charming, unremarkable stranger travels with them, and Tess suspects the reason for Natalie's flight lies in what Rubin withholds and what he refuses to accept.

As Tess digs deeper, a tangle of old wrongs and grudges surfaces, and the danger grows. The case becomes about far more than a marriage, because three children are caught in the middle.