Cold Steal

On a wintry afternoon in Dalton, a town outside Boston, Leonidas Witherall arrives at a house he has never laid eyes on. Money from an uncle allowed him to travel the world, and while abroad he arranged for the house to be built. Now he has to get home and finish the next installment of his Lieutenant Haseltine adventure stories. Two fellow passengers on the train add to his unease: a timid woman everyone calls Swiss Chard, and a striking young woman carrying a brown paper parcel that hides a secret.

The house turns out to be a pleasure, with a kitchen full of red appliances, a library fitted with ladders, and a garage holding a body, the pickaxed remains of Medora, the sour woman next door. Witherall recruits a team of helpers, among them Cassie Price, a scatterbrained housewife, and Cuff, a former car thief who has gone straight and joined the police. Together they must guard the new red refrigerator from thieves, recover a missing envelope of cash, and expose the killer.