Chicago, 1931. The Depression has tightened its hold on the country, & the City of Broad Shoulders has been left hunched in despair. While corruption, crime, unemployment, & bankruptcies flourish, there are still those who have money (though most of the citizens are smart enough not to ask how or why). Among the wealthy is Hobart St. John. He wants a new home, a sixteen-room mansion, to be built in the still-prosperous suburb of Oak Park, the place where Frank Lloyd Wright once lived & where he designed close to thirty buildings. For the young Welsh architect Merlin Richards, the opportunity to work on the house is the answer to a prayer; that it's being given to him as a young associate of the firm of Westlake & Davisson, rather than to one of the senior members, causes him some moments of doubt... but not enough to stop him. Nor do the questions: How did the prime site open up so conveniently? What happened to the house that had been there? How did the small firm for which he works get the job? And why was the body that Richards finds hanging from a rafter on the site described in a brief news mention as that of a drifter who committed suicide? Clearly, the man had been well-groomed & expensively dressed & just as clearly, his hands had been tied behind his back: How does one manage to commit suicide that way? The dream assignment has become a nightmare, & there is no rest for the saints - or Merlin Richards, who realizes all too quickly that the answers he wants might cost him his life.