The Gilded Bailiff

Corinne Hales is a bailiff of the Quiet Court — the shadow tribunal that has settled debts between the living and the hidden since the 1600s. She is very good at her job and has stopped expecting to like it. When a debtor dies in a Chicago room that has been sealed for ninety years, Corinne is sent to collect the estate. The estate is a man: Elias Marchetti, an architect who has been paying a debt he was never told he owed, for six generations, on behalf of ancestors he's never met. To free him, Corinne must find the original contract, prove it was signed under duress — and beat a standard she helped write. Her investigation opens her own office like a wound. A judge who has been forgiving debts in secret. A clerk who has been reassigning them. A creditor class that has learned to buy the court. And at the end, a hearing where the only restitution Corinne can offer is herself.