Jezebel's Daughter

The narrator, an elderly clerk, recalls how the simultaneous deaths of two foreign gentlemen trigger legal and personal entanglements involving wills, widows, and intertwined families. The plot unfolds as a mystery of identity and reputation centered on a woman whose maternal love both humanizes and complicates a past marked by degradation and social condemnation. A gentle but mentally impaired man supplies moments of tenderness amid suspense, while vividly observed scenes in a Frankfort mortuary and other researched settings heighten the atmosphere. The story weaves investigation, moral dilemma, and revelation to examine parentage, prejudice, and the restraining or redemptive power of maternal instinct.