An Affair of the Heart

This mystery novel tells the story of the death of Kirk Banning--a man of crackling vitality pushing toward a crisis in his personal life and his business, and suffering from an ailing heart. With his wife Hilda he runs an advertising agency now in financial trouble; but the chief concern of this demanding man is his mistress, Lorraine Walsh, who is ready to leave him. Kirk Banning dies of a heart attack, alone in her apartment, and the central enigman of the plot is why the pills he always carried ahd disappeared. They would have saved his life. Before that mystery can be solved another man dies, violently; and the range of suspicion includes Banning's mistress and his family. Jean Potts develops her story with the combination of skills characteristic of her--clever plotting and a feeling for character that makes the reader care about what is happening.