Celestial Moon: A Peter Dawes Investigation

A happy wedding in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1879 is catastrophically interrupted when the bride to be is kidnapped and her family murdered. She is smuggled to New York City where she is held captive. On a moonlit night in March Albert Pinkham Ryder leaves the hotel his brother manages and walks from the Greenwich village location to the heart of Chinatown. There he comes upon a Chinese woman staring at the moon. Albert attempts to communicate with her but she doesn’t speak English. After using his sketchpad to convince the Chinese woman that he is truly an artist she agrees to sit for him. The painting is finished and about to be sold to an art dealer when it and the model disappear. The thief and the painting take the transcontinental train to San Francisco where Peter Dawes takes on another investigation.