One Fell Swoop

When mezzo-soprano Renata Radleigh stumbles over a corpse on London's Hampstead Heath, she suspects the death has something to do with her brother Don's boss, a billionaire speculator who will go to any lengths to keep his identity secret. Don is acting as his front-man in far-off St. Louis, Missouri, buying up a borderline slum called Parkdale. Don has an apartment in Parkdale and claims he wants to save the neighborhood. He's even having a romance with a local community gardener, the sturdy Hannah. Tipped off by a long-distance call from his girlfriend Renata, Peter Lombardo tails the slippery Don and discovers he really lives in the fashionable Central West End, where he seems to have a more glamorous lover. Peter is not buying Don's new image. Not even the drug dealers trust the man. Between singing engagements at a London mansion and a prison, Renata tries to find out the truth about Don's employer and ends up pursued by his thugs, fleeing for her life. She flees all the way to St. Louis to join forces with her beloved Peter. Why is the powerful and charismatic chancellor of Adams University interested in Don's dealings? What is Don up to? Does he know himself, or is he nothing but a patsy who could well pay for his cluelessness with his life, as well as the lives of Renata and Peter? Book 2 in the Renata Radleigh Opera Mystery series, which began with Spur of the Moment.