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Brenda Strange dresses with special care. She's an associate in a posh law firm in Newark, New Jersey and is hoping to be asked to become a partner, but the disgruntled ex-husband of a former client has other ideas. Danny Crane brings a sawed off shotgun and a semi-automatic into the offices and shoots indiscriminately. All the founding partners are killed, among others, and Brenda is seriously wounded. She has an out-of-body experience on the operating table, but dead family members return her to her partner, Tina, whose cries bring her back. Before the shooting, Brenda, who was wealthy, had been trying to convince Tina, a sculptress, that they should look for vacation property in Florida. Finally, Tina takes a leave of absence from her teaching job and takes Brenda to Tampa to look at homes. Brenda falls in love with a 19th century residence called Malfour House, which has been vacant, and has an odd history. She convinces the owner that he should sell the house to her because it needs her, and, although he has had better offers, he accepts Brenda's. During the interior reconstruction, Brenda finds a box of love letters in the attic. She researches the house, and learns its history, which is tied to the cigar factories, which were Tampa's main industry during the late 19th and first part of the 20th centuries, and to Albert Malfour, the son of the original owner, and his wife Carlotta Moreno, and a terrible fire which occurred in the servant's quarters in 1926. This is a many layered story. Brenda smells burning, sees and hears the ghost of Carlotta, and becomes obsessed with the house. She feels she must discover the terrible secret the house holds. Meanwhile, Tina is getting along a little too well with a local art gallery owner, and accuses Brenda of neglecting her. There is also the question of the relationship of the previous owner to the Malfour family, and problems of contending with the developer who wants to build some ugly new expensive houses on the Malfour property. Henderson ties all the threads up nicely. There are some rough spots, which is to be expected in a first novel, but I would like to read the next one in the series. It's well worth a second chance
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, January 2002
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