The Bradys' Mysterious Clew

Seven warnings. One vanished millionaire. Old King Brady is running out of time to learn what the numbers mean—before the secret runs out of patience.

Old King Brady has seen every shade of madness Chicago can offer. But nothing quite prepares him for the Duke of Douglas Street.

On a wild New Year's Eve, the legendary detective crosses paths with a skeletal eccentric in a moth-eaten Prince Albert coat—a man who mutters about something called the Secret of the Seven Sevens and then vanishes back into the night. Brady files it away as the ravings of a harmless crank.

Then a millionaire disappears without a trace.

Simon Dithlow—copper baron, money lender, and one of Chicago's richest recluses—steps out of his Park Avenue home one morning and is never seen again. The best detectives in the city have turned up nothing. No body. No ransom. No lead.

Until Brady finds seven paper sevens arranged on a breakfast table.

Suddenly the Duke's midnight ravings don't sound so mad. Suddenly the copper trust, a cheated prospector, and a nervous little secretary all begin to pull toward the same dark center. Brady can feel the shape of a conspiracy forming in the shadows—vast, ruthless, and moving faster than he is.

The seven sevens keep appearing. Someone keeps sending them. And whoever controls their meaning controls whether Dithlow lives or dies.

Brady is closing in. But in a game this old and this crooked, the clue that should save you can just as easily be the one that buries you.