Running a museum in Philadelphia seems so innocuous. How could it possibly bring the museum director Nell Pratt into contact with murders? In the seventh book in her Museum

series, Sheila Connolly tells us of a house the museum owns down a DEAD END STREET. A do-good society hopes they can work with the not-for-profit museum to renovate and in so doing, rehabilitate the area. Nell Pratt agrees to look at the house with them - to her regret.

By contrast with a lot of tales in which a body would have been found or buried years before in this kind of old house, the danger is right in your face. Someone shoots at the inspection party in this run-down neighbourhood where respectable people don't go. Nell survives but not everyone is so lucky. Nell's boyfriend James who is in the FBI helps her through the police interviews, but she has no idea whether this was a random crime, or one connected to the renovation group, or to the house itself.

I was interested to read about the shifting fortunes of this industrial city. Once a centre for sugar refining, iron and steel, and other manufacturing, it has now slumped with just an ice-cream maker left from the old days. Families have moved to suburbs and the formerly residential area is depicted here as derelict, used for anti-social activity. By contrast, our heroine is also invited to visit a gracious colonial residence with fifty acres of land. Two ladies who grew up in this family home want it preserved intact after their deaths, not torn down to make way for a McMansion. The contrast could not be stronger, with tea, a silver service and dainty sandwiches. Nell realises that both rich and poor buildings are equally parts of history.

Full marks to Sheila Connolly, who has many mysteries under her belt, for not sugar-coating the ills of modern city society. Her determined heroine Nell and her readjustment to reality provide a fine counterpoint to all the small- town mysteries. Some of her friends and staff are from various cultural minorities, so Nell's exploring the complex issues comes across honestly and in an open manner. Personal issues also get addressed in the hunt for the killer. Can Nell do anything constructive about the DEAD END STREET? She knows she has to try. This is a gripping, distinctive read from a popular and much travelled author.