Framework for Death — Aileen Schumacher

BLUEPRINT FOR MURDER

When a ceiling collapses in a posh El Paso home, two dead women and a baby are pulled from the wreckage in what at first seems to be a bizarre accident. But to engineer Tory Travers and detective David Alvarez, when a secret room is discovered and the strange connection between the victims emerges, it begins to look suspiciously like murder.

One of the victims, a prominent and much-loathed El Paso matriarch, was part of an underground railroad helping abused women escape to safety. The identity of the other woman--and the baby--pushes the case into the treacherous territory of organized crime. Armed with her code books, calipers and clipboards, Tory determines the means of murder, and Alvarez uncovers the motive, as a surprising twist, strange revelations and an unlikely killer create a solid framework for death.