In Death in Lacquer Red, Jeanne Danis launches a new series that introduces Hilda Johansson, a young Swedish woman working in the South Bend, Indiana, home of the Studebaker family as the twentieth century begins.. "Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world, religious conflicts, and international unrest, Hilda finds herself facing the typical problems of an immigrant and the demands of a job that is both exhausting and exhilarating. Her struggle to be a good servant is compounded when she discovers, on the Studebaker estate, the body of a woman just returned from missionary work in China. Everyone has a theory. Everyone wants Hilda to stay out of things that don't concern her. But is it possible that she's the only one who can see what the others refuse to even acknowledge?