Society Mystery

The war on drugs has been lost but for want of the courage to face the fact that the whole world is rapidly becoming one vast criminal network. From pop stars and princes to crack whores and street kids. From the Groucho Club toilets to the poppy fields of Afghanistan, we are all partners in crime.

Twelve-year-old Tessa was looking forward to baking cookies, relaxing, and spending time with her best friend Dennis in their clubhouse, but with the sudden arrival of Katie—her perfect gymnast cousin from the US—Tessa's plans change. Katie isn't very nice at the best of times, but now has turned downright hostile, and is threatening to ruin everyone's summer.

It's a quiet house, sheltered, standing in a mass of tangled old trees called the Holtwood. Raymond watches it. He's been watching it, through a gap in the fence at the bottom of the garden, for weeks. Thinking about the elderly owners, Mr and Mrs Latch, who took him in one night when he was a frightened boy caught up in an emergency. Mr Latch showed him something that was kept in a wardrobe in the spare room. He can't remember what it was. He only knows how sick it made him feel. Raymond watches Holt House. He has to remember what he saw. He has to get inside.

The Yarn Studio’s Seaside Knitters have their hands full designing new classes for vacationers, as well as testing each other’s originality by creating a single blanket together. Birdie’s teenage granddaughter is also visiting for the season. Meanwhile, the Lazy Lobster and Soup Café’s local fare is gaining newfound attention with the addition of a well-known Boston chef. It’s sure to be another beautiful, busy time in their tight-knit town… Until Birdie spots a huge blaze from her balcony one evening, frighteningly close to knitter Cass’s lobster business.

Following a painful public humiliation, Dahlia Lancaster was left heartbroken, friendless, and shunned by London Society. But rather than dwelling on the balls she’ll never attend, Dahlia has turned her attentions to her unconventional inheritance—a steamship company. After a year of work, she’s preparing to launch The Aurora, a luxury ocean liner that promises to revolutionize travel. The invitation list is exclusive: Dahlia’s closest friends—the Blue Orchid Society—as well as a few influential individuals from her old life, whose presence will ensure the success of her endeavor.

Paul Strom is the perfect husband: breadwinner, protector, provider. That's why he's planned a romantic weekend for his wife, Mia, at their lake house, just the two of them. And he's promised today will be the best day ever. But as Paul and Mia drive out of the city and toward the countryside, a spike of tension begins to wedge itself between them, and doubts start to arise. How perfect is their marriage, or any marriage, really? How much do they trust each other? Is Paul the person he seems to be? And what are his secret plans for their weekend?

Sefia knows what it means to survive. After her father is brutally murdered, she flees into the wilderness with her aunt Nin, who teaches her to hunt, track, and steal. But when Nin is kidnapped, leaving Sefia completely alone, none of her survival skills can help her discover where Nin's been taken, or if she's even alive. The only clue to both her aunt's disappearance and her father's murder is the odd rectangular object her father left behind, an object she comes to realize is a book - an item unheard of in her illiterate society.

Blanche White is a plump, feisty, middle-aged African-American housekeeper working for the genteel rich in North Carolina. But when an employer stiffs her, and her checks bounce, she goes on the lam, hiding out as a maid for a wealthy family at their summer home. That plan goes awry when there's a murder and Blanche becomes the prime suspect. So she's forced to use her savvy, her sharp wit, and her old-girl network of domestic workers to discover the truth and save her own skin.

Izzy Perry’s Sea Harbor Yarn Studio is heating up, thanks to an upcoming fashion benefit. The show will feature hand-knit garments, and enthusiastic knitters flock to the shop for supplies to create runway-worthy pieces. Yet Seaside Knitter Birdie is enjoying flocks of a different kind, thanks to a rekindled interest in birdwatching. Along with a group of passionate birders, she often spends weekend mornings looking for warblers or keeping watch for gannets and grebes. It’s a lovely, special time—until Birdie makes her way through a tangle of vines and stumbles upon a fellow birder’s body.

Augusta Lockwood is still wrestling with the dilemma of an anonymous corpse buried beneath her floorboards, when a new mystery arrives on her doorstep. A governess friend from the secret ladies society presses Augusta into helping to identify the culprit behind a series of deadly goings on in a great house under shadow.

Nonetheless, Augusta cannot refuse a plea for help when one of her society friends believes her life is in peril. To investigate a murder attempt, Augusta must set aside thoughts of her increasingly sinister tenant, Mr. Hawksworth, and the arrival of the troublingly handsome anatomist, Adam Seagrave. She must forget about the mysterious intruder who keeps trying to break into her house, and above all, she must banish thoughts of the dead body in her late father's locked study.

While no-nonsense mother-to-be Cass Halloran tries downplaying her pregnancy and her frequent doctor's visits as an older mother-to-be, a softer side of the lobsterwoman emerges as she joins the Seaside Knitters in knitting an abundance of delicate hats and booties. But in contrast to the happy news, terrifying events unfold at the town's art series that puts a real chill in their New England fall...

As a struggling young attorney fresh out of law school, Renny Jacobson was pining for the day he could afford the fast cars and sprawling homes of the partners in his Charlotte firm. And with news of his father's death and an ancient, secret inheritance, Renny's life was sure to change forever. But the inheritance and membership in the clandestine society which provided it soon threatens to change him in more ways than one.

We know you are here, our brothers and sisters...Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost - how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers...to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small.

When a young woman is savagely assaulted, the four members of the Jansen family find themselves increasingly involved. All four have secrets they keep from the police - and from each other. Johann is a disgruntled husband and planning to have an affair with a colleague. His wife, Sue, is a new member of The Society of Unexampled Brilliance and allowing its ‘self-improvement’ cause to take over her life. Rebecca, their daughter, is a teacher who moonlights for a private investigator, trapping adulterous men (though her own love life would come as a surprise to her targets).

Ellie works as an accountant at her father’s successful investment company in New York City. She enjoys all the comforts her privileged lifestyle affords—a two-bedroom apartment overlooking Central Park, a generous trust fund, and a devastatingly attractive if often absent husband who works long hours for her father as well. Yet the introverted young woman who wants for nothing feels aimless and untethered. Ellie lost her mother at a young age and still has nightmares about her death. She sometimes sleepwalks at night and finds herself stumbling through the days.

To the discerning few were revealed the esoteric, or spiritual, teachings, while the unqualified received only the literal, or exoteric, interpretations. In order to make simple the great truths of nature and the abstract principles of natural law, the vital forces of the universe were personified, becoming the gods and goddesses of the ancient mythologies. While the ignorant multitudes brought their offerings to the altars of Priapus and Pan, the wise recognized in these marble statues only symbolic concretions of great abstract truths.

Lila Shaw stopped trusting anyone the minute her husband went to jail for white-collar crime, taking their country club lifestyle with him. Now Lila is broke, friendless, and losing her house—and to make things worse, her true-crime-obsessed daughter, Bea, was just expelled from fourth grade. Desperate for a fresh start, Lila agrees to temporarily move in and clean out an abandoned junk-filled apartment in Richmond’s palatial Primrose building.

Armed with Victorian etiquette, a fully loaded walking stick, and a dead husband, Beatrice Knight arrives in colonial Kenya desperate for a pot of tea and a pinch of cinnamon. But she'll need more than that if she's to unravel the mystery of the Ghosts of Tsavo without being eaten in the process. All this while surviving the machinations of her best friend's dashing godfather and the efforts of her safari guide to feed her to any lion willing to drag her away. What is a ghost-chasing widow to do?

A large group of people enters the Rutledge Historical Society to see the new and much anticipated 1950s murder exhibit. After viewing the display, the group exits the building leaving two people behind. A few minutes later, one of the two is shot dead in front of the exhibit and the other one rushes out the back door and escapes. Was the perpetrator one of the group or was it the old woman’s daughter who has only a very weak (and stinky) alibi? Or could it have been someone else?