When her seedy and importunate Aunt Elena turns up on her doorstep at midnight having been burned out of her old people's home, V.I. Warshawski is exasperated rather than curious. Her interest is aroused however, when an old friend, now a politician, puts pressure on her to investigate.
Tulipomania - The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused
In the 1630s, visitors to the prosperous trading cities of the Netherlands couldn't help but notice that thousands of normally sober, hardworking Dutch citizens from every walk of life were caught up in an extraordinary frenzy of buying and selling. The object of this unprecedented speculation was the tulip, a delicate and exotic Eastern import that had bewitched horticulturists, noblemen, and tavern owners alike. For almost a year rare bulbs changed hands for incredible and ever-increasing sums, until single flowers were being sold for more than the cost of a house. Historians would come to call it tulipomania.
Fifteen years after the notorious War at Cat Lake, Missy Parker, the child who stood in the center of the demonic war, now lives in Texas with her husband, Pat. But Satan's minions remain at Cat Lake, waiting. On a bleak night in April, 1960, evil is aroused. An innocent black woman is attacked by a mob of white men. Old Mose Washington confronts the men with a twelve-gauge shotgun, and people die.
