Revenge

Revenge is central to the novel WITNESS IN DEATH. Richard Draco is murdered on stage during opening night at the New Globe Theater. The play, "Witness for the Prosecution" had Draco playing the role of an evil man, one who uses his wife to protest his innocence and casting her aside for another woman. The prop knife that was to have been plunged into Draco's shoulder is switched, and a real knife is instead plunged into the actor's heart, killing him.

Areena Mansfield is the actress playing the wronged wife in the play. Mansfield seems distraught after Draco's death, horrified that she has killed a man, despite the fact that in real life Draco was as egotistical as the character he played. In reality, Mansfield had a relationship with Draco years earlier, and he had fathered the child that Areena had put up for adoption. That child, now...