Claire and her sister Catherine were very close as girls, but when Catherine quickly married Aaron Sorensen, he cut them off from each other. Before she knew it, Catherine was pregnant, then died along with her one-day-old child. Claire cannot accept that her sister would cut her off and doesn't believe her death was natural.
She hires Mackenzie and Hunter to find the truth. They start with the postmortem photographs, a morbid trend in the late 1880s. With the aide of their friend journalist and photographer Jacob Riis, they discover how the eyes of the deceased are made to look real. What they also discover stuns them.
They find small blood vessel ruptures in the eyes which in many cases is indicative of suffocation.
They soon discover the new widower has quickly remarried and his current wife, a heiress, is very pregnant, and possibly in danger.
An aside about postmortem photos. They were very popular and some photographers specialized in this type of photography. Photographers were usually called by family members when the person was near death so they could be posed before rigor mortis set in. In this book the photographer Bartholomew Monroe and his sister are well known for their work. But Monroe is completely obsessed with capturing the soul leaving the body and has been accused of helping along some of his clients.
As they continue to investigate, they find a murderous fortune hunter who marries then kills his new wives. Add to the mix a mentally unbalanced death photographer and you have a potent mystery.
An excellent book with a unique take on fortune hunting con men.
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