Home » THE ARCHITECT OF DECEPTION by Debbie Baldwin: Excerpt

THE ARCHITECT OF DECEPTION by Debbie Baldwin: Excerpt

August 1, 2026 | By Women Writers Women Books | Reply More

We are delighted to feature an excerpt from THE ARCHITECT OF DECEPTION by Debbie Baldwin.

THE ARCHITECT OF DECEPTION

A high-society mystery set in the rarefied penthouse air of New York’s old-money elite. It’s a world where perception is more important than the truth and secrets are guarded at any cost. Every move is calculated, and someone is always one step ahead.

Razz James should be at the center of Manhattan’s elite, but six years after his twin brother’s death, he is drifting through a life he no longer recognizes. When his best friend receives a cryptic invitation from an exclusive secret society, it promises a distraction, if nothing else.

The initiation seems almost absurd: steal a meaningless memento from the penthouse of reclusive billionaire Apollo Peck. But when Razz steps up to the challenge, what begins as a reckless stunt spirals into something far more dangerous. A man is dead. The circle tightens. Razz finds himself caught in a web of wealth, power, and secrets where everyone is hiding something.

As suspicion mounts and loyalties fracture, Razz must untangle a mystery before he becomes the next pawn sacrificed on the board.

“Sharp, seductive, and impossible to untangle, this is a locked-room mystery for the modern age—perfect for fans of Riley Sager and Lucy Foley.” — BookLife Reviews

EXCERPT

CHAPTER 1

Two years ago…

There is a subtle but important distinction between self-destructive and suicidal. It was easy to tell the difference when he’d been both.

Razz James’s thoughts fought their way to the surface of his sluggish mind as he rested the highball glass against his forehead and willed away the pain. Even the rain-darkened sky was too bright for his hangover, and he turned his head into the brocade throw pillow his mother had brought over to hide the worn spot on the sofa.

Here he was on yet another murky morning, still in need of a haircut, still wondering about his place in the world (in both a physical and existential sense). Still promising to do one healthy thing each day, still breaking that promise. Still. His world was still.

Everything was the same except the date. His housekeeper, Marisol, had a word-of-the-day calendar stuck to the refrigerator. The pages fell like autumn leaves. Razz blinked and pungent (May 2), became lugubrious (August 12), became supercilious (December 17), became lacrimose (April 11). It all felt fatuous (September 30).

Seven years ago, Razz had been sitting in the upstairs library at Ivy Club, pretending to contemplate his Princeton senior thesis, when a woman he didn’t know well leaned across his chair’s padded armrest and asked, “What are you going to do after graduation?”

With a wistful smile, Razz had tipped his head against the butter-soft, hunter-green leather, looked up at the beamed ceiling, and replied, “I’m going to buy a house and start really hanging out.”

And that’s what he had done. The day he received his diploma, he bought the four-story West Village townhome sight unseen for $14 million, furnished it with his parents’ throwaways from their Fifth Avenue apartment and Greenwich home, his old college crap, and a bureau and neon Budweiser sign he had found on the street. Razz described the decor as eighties frat house revival.

That hodgepodge was why he was currently supine on a Naugahyde couch with a tuna can for one leg and setting his empty tumbler on a Hepplewhite console table.

On their tenth birthday, Razz’s grandfather had given him an antique pocket watch that belonged to Razz’s great-great-grandfather: a 1797 Vacheron Constantin. (Razz had wanted a Wii.) His brother, Vincent, got a first edition of Treasure Island. Their grandfather was, and remained, a rigid, austere businessman. He had walked the twins through the woods surrounding his Wellesley, Massachusetts home, unceremoniously handed the boys their gifts while dropping poison pellets into mole tunnels. He had said, “Remember, boys, wealth is the destroyer of ambition.”

That statement represented the black hole in which Razz currently found himself.

He needed a way back across the event horizon. The alternative was too bleak to imagine.

Thunder bowled across the windows as voices drifted overhead.

“Can I just dump a bucket of water on his head?”

“Fine, just steer clear of the PS5 cords. I don’t want a toaster in the tub situation.”

Razz pulled himself to vertical. Bits of plaster fell from his shirt onto the couch. The conversation had the familiarity of a childhood blanket, comforting yet itchy. He set the dregs of the drink on a coaster—no amount of alcohol could eclipse his breeding—and felt around on the end table for his glasses.

Once the tortoiseshell frames were settled on the bridge of his nose, Razz said, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter.”

Archie Stonebridge and Hatcher Boudreaux were Razz’s best friends by default. The same way one acquired siblings—there was no choosing or questioning. It just was.

Archie adjusted his massive frame in the delicate Chinese Chippendale club chair while Hatch fiddled with the broken reclining mechanism of a La-Z-Boy Razz had found in the basement. As a practical matter of height and weight, they should each be sitting in the other mismatched chair, but humans seemed to gravitate to the familiar.

Razz rephrased his welcome. “To what do I owe the honor?”

Hatch picked up the highball glass and gave the contents a cautious sniff. “Jesus, are you drinking Old Internationals?”

“I was feeling nostalgic.” Razz rubbed his temples.

“I would have guessed nauseated.” Hatch fished the thyme sprig from the glass and gestured like a professor holding a pointer. “No offense, but great-granddad’s Prohibition special needs a burial at sea next to the old man.”

Ever the disciplined athlete and relentless motivator, Archie laced his fingers between his knees and asked, “Ready for a good day?”

The clearing of a throat had the three men turning to the room’s arched entrance. Blankenship, or Mr. B as they had called him as children, stood in the doorway holding a small silver tray with a pitcher of ice water, a bottle of pain relievers, and a paper copy of The New York Times. Razz had started reading the physical copy of the news ironically, but found he preferred it to the online version.

Blankenship was a pin-thin man with a ring of brown hair and a perpetual look of disapproval. He had a deep scar on his right cheek that he refused to explain. Razz found him positively Dickensian.

Archie and Hatch stood.

“Oh, hey, Mr. B.”

“Boys.” Blankenship stepped fully into the room and, a half inch above the surface, dropped the tray on the table, causing enough of a bang to aggravate Razz’s headache and convey a clear message of reproach. He passed Razz the old-fashioned, screw-top ice pack, poured a glass of water, and placed it, along with four painkillers, on a linen placemat. “Anything else, sir? Clip your toenails? Clean your ears?”

Razz settled the ice pack on his head. “No, thank you. This is good.”

Blankenship filled the tray with the remnants of the previous evening as he commented, “This is the third consecutive day of solitary intoxication. Get your shit together, Erasmus James.”

“Just Razz, please.”

Archie muttered, “If it was only the third day, I wouldn’t be worried.”

Blankenship finished tidying and left without another word.

“Tell me you did not abduct your parents’ house manager,” Hatch scolded.

“He loves taking care of me. He wanted to come.”

A shout came from the hallway. “Erroneous!”

“Whatever.” Razz sank the pills and half the water. “Damn, he forgot my coffee.”

Archie laughed. “Blankenship forgets nothing. He’s trying to get you off your ass.”

Razz smacked his lips. “My mouth tastes like the floor of a subway platform.”

“I’m afraid you might know that for a fact,” Archie replied.

“Diner?” Razz asked.

Hatch checked his Hublot, a recent purchase. “I’ve got an hour or so.”

Archie drummed his thighs. “Can’t. I have to be somewhere.”

Razz tucked the newspaper under his arm and forced himself to stand. As he pushed off the couch, more bits of plaster fell from his shirt.

Hatch looked more closely. “What is that?”

“Not sure.” Razz swiped at his button-down. He stepped to the side, revealing a hint of dark metal tucked into the back of the couch.

“Is that?” Archie pointed to the antique Walther P38, Razz’s great-grandfather’s World War II souvenir, typically displayed in a velvet-lined box on the bookshelf.

There was a moment of anticipatory silence, the space between the flash of lightning and the roll of thunder, then Archie shouted, “Jesus Christ, Razz! Did you fire a gun in here?”

All three men tipped their heads to the ceiling. There, in the center of the ornamental plasterwork, was a bullet hole.

“I’m not sure.” Razz scratched his hair, dislodging more plaster fragments.

Hatch picked the gun up with his thumb and index finger, holding it at arm’s length and stepping back. Archie took it and expertly cleared it. Blankenship heard the shouting and returned to the room. Instantly, understanding the situation, he took the weapon and left.

Archie turned away with his palms on his head.

Hatch was red-faced with anger. “This has to stop, Razz. I know it’s hard. He was my best friend. I loved him too!”

Razz sank onto the couch. “I don’t remember doing it, okay. It was probably just an accident.” Even he didn’t believe it.

Hatch sat on the coffee table facing him. “We have to tell your parents about this. Archie and I thought you’d, I don’t know, not get over it, but maybe heal. Then six months became a year, then two, and then three. It’s been four years, Razz. You need help.”

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”

Archie was staring out the window at the wet fall day. He spun to face them. “How the fuck do you know? You were black out.”

“I just know, okay?”

“Nothing about this is okay.” Hatch took Razz by the biceps and shook him. “You’ve gotta get your shit together, or you’re gonna end up in a room with straps on the bed. Vincent wouldn’t want this for you.”

Razz stared sightlessly at the floor. “Some twins fight to have their own identity.” With a mirthless laugh, he said, “I never did. I liked being part of a pair.” He slid off the couch to the floor. “Now I’m a half.”

Archie checked the time on his phone. “Shit, I have to go. Do you want me to call Jane to come sit with you? Or your sister?”

Razz didn’t look up as he poked his thumb at the arched entry. “Jane’s out of the country, and Letty left for school. Besides, I already have a babysitter.”

Marisol, his housekeeper and surrogate mother, stood like a prison guard, holding a wooden spoon like a billy club. Razz rose to his feet with a forced smile. “I’m fine. It was a momentary lapse. Let’s do something tonight, yeah?”

A skeptical gaze passed between the two men as they skirted Razz and opened the front door. Archie turned back. “I’ll stop by later.”

Razz raised a hand in a motionless wave. The door closed, and Marisol returned to the kitchen. After a very long shower, Razz sat with the ice pack over his face and his head against the back of the couch, listening to the rain.

The first time he heard the knock, Razz thought he imagined it. He wasn’t expecting anyone, and even if Hatch had phoned his parents about the gun, they’d never make it here from Connecticut that fast. The second time the lion’s head knocker hit the plaque, Razz pushed to his feet and pulled open the door without checking the peephole. There on his stoop, wearing an emerald-green raincoat with soaking wet caramel-colored hair and an inside-out umbrella, was a woman holding a paper bag. Her eyes matched her coat. Raindrops clung to her lashes.

And for the first time in four years, Razz’s lips lifted in a genuine smile.

BUY THE ARCHITECT OF DECEPTION HERE

Debbie Baldwin is a successful print media and television writer. She is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Virginia School of Law.