Incident at Devil's Finger

On a beautiful June day, the famous performance artist Magnifica is set to jump from a helicopter and parachute down through the Red Rock Pinnacle monuments of Sedona, Arizona. What the large and excited crowd sees instead is the massive explosion and collapse of Devil's Finger, a thousand-foot Red Rock pinnacle.

Art sleuth Julian Peale is on the case, looking where the authorities are not-into the mysterious artworld ties to Magnifica. There's a New York art patron, the Wall Street gambler,...