Merlin Richards Books

An architect leaves Wales to find success in America, but instead finds himself accused of murdering a beautiful young designer on the site of an Arizona hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

While the Great Depression has tightened its grip on the world, there are still some who have money to fulfill all their dreams. One of these men is Hobart St. John, who wants a sixteen-room mansion in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park. For young Welsh architect Merlin Richards, the opportunity to work on the house is the answer to a prayer. That the assignment should have gone to a senior member of the firm gives Richards a moment's pause, but it's not enough to stop him. Neither do the questions: How did the prime site open up so conveniently? What happened to the house that had been there? Why did the small company where he works get the job? And why was the body, which he 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 and expensively dressed, and just as clearly, his hands had been tied behind his back. Just how does one manage to commit suicide that way? His dream assignment is fast becoming a nightmare, and Merlin Richards realizes all too quickly that the answers he wants might cost him his life.