The Hunting of the Hawk
Summary
A behemoth of the waves, a floating microcosm of early 20th-century class hierarchies, slices through the Atlantic, harboring the elusive 'Hawk.' Diana Curran, tethered to a traumatic lineage of involuntary forgery, finds her past and present colliding in a high-stakes masquerade. Her father, an artisan of the burin whose talent was his curse, was manipulated into a counterfeiting ring by the predatory Wrenshaw, leading to a fatal raid that left Diana haunted by a perceived homicide. Now, amidst the opulence of a country estate and the glittering lure of a stolen necklace, the masks begin to slip. Desselway, the enigmatic suitor, and Wrenshaw, the ghost of her matrimonial mistake, engage in a dance of shadows where the line between law and larceny blurs into a singular pursuit of justice and retribution.
Synopsis
Steaming across the Atlantic, loaded with passengers of every description, came one of those mammoth ocean liners headed for New York. On board was supposed to be the Hawk, a notorious international thief. Diana Curran, secretary for a wealthy society woman, received a proposal of marriage from Desselway, an unknown on board. She loved him, but the memory of the past interfered. Diana's father labored unsuccessfully to sell his engravings. His work was not in demand, until one day to him came a stranger who, posing as a member of the Treasury Department, gave him a commission to make duplicate plates of government notes. While her father was working on the plates, Wrenshaw, the supposed treasury man, made love to Diana, and they were married, but on the morning of the marriage the secret service raided the rooms of Pinna's father, and in the ensuing fight her father was killed and she believed that she had killed a man herself. Arriving at the country estate, she found that Wrenshaw, whom she had left the day after her marriage, was employed as secretary to her mistress' husband. Also Desselway was invited for the house party. Then things began to happen around a necklace. Wrenshaw's gang were among the servants. Desselway secured the necklace by force. An escaped counterfeiter, one whom Wrenshaw double crossed years back, in the neighborhood. In the chase Wrenshaw was killed by a shot through the window, Desselway's real character was revealed, and Diana saw the man whom she thought she had killed.
