A Shakespearean actor-turned-sleuth wonders if a suicide's been staged—and suspects the members of an eccentric New York family . . .

A ramshackle trawler, the Lavinia D rumbles into New York harbor with empty nets. When its crew spies something floating in the water, they drag it in, hoping for a profitable catch. Their prize flops on the deck, limp, cold, and bloody: the corpse of a man. His name was York Hatter, and he had disappeared from his house on the fashionable Washington Square several days before. He hadn't left a note and he wasn't carrying any money. The police assume he killed himself—but they are very wrong.

The Hatter family is famously eccentric, and when a murder attempt is made on York's invalid stepdaughter, any one of them could be the culprit. Solving the case will fall to Drury Lane, the retired Shakespearean actor who has turned his genius to solving crimes. But he may find that these Hatters are so crazy and so deadly, they even put Hamlet to shame.