A church potluck dinner. A sudden, shocking murder right after the pastor says grace. Lieutenant Joe Sonntag is a horrified witness. Sonntag heads the police investigations bureau in mid-century Milwaukee-a city of churches and taverns, great factories, orange streetcars...and dark antagonisms. Sonntag swiftly arrests Manfred Wittstein, who claims his wife Freda killed their children: Matthew, Mark, Gerta, and Reuben. Thus begins an odd quest to learn why the killer shot Freda, and whether the man's wife had destroyed their children. The children are, indeed, missing. Joe Sonntag and his best detective, Frank Silva, need to find out what happened to each of the children. It's no easy task. Freda Wittstein, the dead wife, lived in a spooky world of her own far beyond the reach of law and public order. It soon proves to be a case unlike any other Sonntag has tackled. The Joe Sonntag mysteries are written by Axel Brand, a pseudonym for historical novelist Richard S. Wheeler. Other titles in the series are "The Hotel Dick, The Dead Genius, Night Medicine," and "The Saboteur," all of them set in the sprawling gray city on the shore of Lake Michigan.