June, 1900. Emma Cross is on the arm of her fiancé, Derrick Andrews, at a small but exclusive gathering of the New York Yacht Club at Beacon Rock. The members--who include cousin and Yacht Club Commodore John Pierpoint Morgan and widow Lucy Carnegie, the first woman to be admitted to the Club--are there to discuss their strategy for the next America's Cup Challenge, to be held in New York Harbor the following summer. Emma discovers a woman's body bobbing against one of the hulls of the boats moored at the base of Beacon Rock and wonders if the woman fell from the Newport ferry and was carried by the tide. Trying to quiet any scandal for the Morgans, police conclude the victim is a suicide after she is identified as the missing daughter of a yacht designer. Emma suspects murder, and must sort through a who's who of sportsmen, boat crews, and the Newport elite to solve the crime--Adapted from book jacket.