Who poisoned Laurens De Noyes with a deadly dose of brandy so that the drunken Dutchman dropped dead on Boston Common in 1691? Widowed businesswoman Hetty Henry teams up with young Boston minister Increase 'Creasy' Cotton to investigate Colonial Albany for suspects. Could it be the wife, who keeps her own name and her cool at news of her husband's death? Could it be his father-in-law, who detested his philandering son-in-law? Could it possibly be one of his jilted lovers, stolen mistresses, or their husbands? Or could it be blackmail? De Noyes was not above a little extortion. Hetty and Creasy undergo Indian attack, kidnapping and Piracy on the High Hudson before they uncork the criminal with a doctored dram of their own.
