Algernon Pendleton -- call him Al -- lives by himself in a suburban Boston house loaded with treasures collected by his Egyptologist great-grandfather. His solitary life, punctuated by occasional visits to a shop where he trades artifacts for ready cash, would be lonely if not for his confidential chats with Eulalia, a talking porcelain pitcher. When an old army buddy shows up with a suitcase full of money, Eulalia has some less-than-friendly ideas about separating their houseguest from his fortune. Meanwhile, a professor of archaeology is getting increasingly suspicious about the shop's supply of rare and valuable antiquities. Thanks to Eulalia's advice, Al soon finds himself trapped in a murder mystery that unfolds with ample doses of black humor.

You have to have a heart of stone not to love Algernon Pendleton, the mad-as-a-hatter murderer ... Curl up with him and your doom is sealed ... Greenan has fashioned an excursion in to the macabre that is in a class by itself. -- Saturday Review

Oddly appealing, a sort of Arsenic and Old Lace approach that really works in terms of entertainment if you have a taste for the fantastic. -- Publishers Weekly