Grand Master Phyllis Whitney dishes out another classic novel of suspense set in a large Chicago department store. Linell Wynn's ex-boyfriend turns up in a display window—dead. Everyone is a suspect, but Linell discovers some of her co-workers are not who they say they are! How does it feel to be in a big department store after customers have hurried home and the lights have been darkened so that eeriness reigns over the vast reaches of the floors? To Linell Wynn, who writes sign copy for Cunninghams', such a scene has always seemed perfectly natural until the day that murder walks the floors at dusk. The matter-of-factness of the police as they question people whom she knows, works with every day, does nothing to dispel the feeling that they are only temporarily holding back the powers of darkness. Evil has struck once—and evil is hovering, waiting to strike again. Steeling herself, giving herself courage against it, she is still unprepared when she stumbles upon death for the second time. Things which have familiar everyday significance suddenly assume a strange unnaturalness and terror surrounds her. Before that terror can be vanquished, Linell, herself, stands face to face with death.
Author
Phyllis Ayame Whitney (1903 – 2008) was an American mystery writer. Rare for her genre, she wrote mysteries for both the juvenile and the adult markets, many of which feature exotic locations. A review in The New York Times once dubbed her "The Queen of the American Gothics". She was born in Japan to American parents and spent her early years in Asia. Whitney wrote more than seventy novels. In 1961, her book The Mystery of the Haunted Pool won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Juvenile novel, and she duplicated the honor in 1964, for The Mystery of the Hidden Hand. In 1988, the MWA gave her a Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement. Whitney died of pneumonia on February 8, 2008, aged 104.
