All Ruby wanted was a fresh start. But after an early retirement and a relocation to a tight-knit community with her husband, Tom, and her daughter, Lily, her new beginning takes a turn. First her troubled daughter and then her husband disappear without a trace. Unsure how to cope, grief-ridden Ruby turns to her neighborhood friends to find a way forward with new hobbies, including a murder club where they try to solve cold cases. But just as unexpectedly as her family vanished, a body floats to the surface of the nearby lake. And everyone is sure the body belongs to Tom...everyone except Ruby. Determined to find out what happened to her family once and for all, Ruby digs into her neighbors’ lives, and her own, only to uncover secrets that raise more questions than they answer.

When Mona Ramsey married Lord Teddy Roughton to secure his visa --- allowing him to remain in San Francisco to fulfill his wildest dreams --- she never imagined that by age 48, she would be the sole owner of Easley House, Teddy’s grand, romantic country manor in the UK. She also didn't imagine that she’d need to open the manor’s doors to paying guests to afford the electric bill and repair the leaking roof. Yet somehow, she and her young friend, Wilfred --- whom guests assume is serving as Easley’s charming-but-clumsy butler --- and the loopy old gardener, Mr. Hargis, are making it work. This delicate equilibrium is upended when Americans Rhonda and Ernie Blaylock arrive for a weekend vacation at Easley, and Wilfred stumbles onto their terrible secret.

Jo Jones has always had a little trouble fitting in. As a neurodivergent, hyperlexic book editor and divorced New Yorker transplanted into the English countryside, Jo doesn’t know what stands out more: her Americanisms or her autism. After losing her job, her mother and her marriage all in one year, she couldn’t be happier to take possession of a possibly haunted (and clearly unwanted) family estate in North Yorkshire. But when the body of the moody town groundskeeper turns up on her rug with three bullets in his back, Jo finds herself in potential danger --- and she’s also a potential suspect. At the same time, a peculiar family portrait vanishes from a secret room in the manor, bearing a strange connection to both the dead body and Jo’s mysterious family history.

Freya Lockwood is shocked when she learns that Arthur Crockleford, an antiques dealer and her estranged mentor, has died under mysterious circumstances. She has spent the last 20 years avoiding her quaint English hometown, but when she receives a letter from Arthur asking her to investigate --- sent just days before his death --- Freya has no choice but to return to a life she had sworn to leave behind. Joining forces with her eccentric Aunt Carole, Freya follows clues and her instincts to an old manor house for an advertised antiques enthusiast’s weekend. But it’s clear to Freya that the antiques are all just poor reproductions and her fellow guests are secretive and menacing. What is going on at this estate, and how was Arthur involved? Can Freya and Carole discover the truth before the killer strikes again?

When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out. The program is a who’s who of crime-writing royalty: the debut writer (me!), the forensic science writer, the blockbuster writer, the legal thriller writer, the literary writer, and the psychological suspense writer. But when one of us is murdered, the remaining authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime. Of course, we also should know how to commit one. How can you find a killer when all the suspects know how to get away with murder?

Meg works for a casino in LA, catching cheaters and popping a few too many pain pills to cope, following a far different path than her sister Haley, a famous actress. But suddenly reports surface of Haley dying at the remote rehab facility where she had been forced to go to get her addictions under control. There are whispers of suicide, but Meg can't believe it. She decides that the best way to find out what happened to her sister is to check in herself --- to investigate what really happened from the inside. Battling her own addictions and figuring out the truth will be much more difficult than she imagined, far away from friends, family --- and anyone who could help her.

Paxos, Greece. The vacation house is a luxurious getaway for a wealthy English family. One hot summer night, while the parents and their friends drink wine and amuse themselves, a young woman --- the teenage daughter of the Greek caretaker --- ventures for a walk on their private beach. Her life will never be the same again. London, England, 10 years later. Julia is the perfect spouse and mother. But behind her winning smile is a stifled woman trapped in a gilded cage, stricken with anxiety and perfectionism. When Julia meets Laurel, a therapist who promises to help her find fulfillment, Julia opens herself up to the hope of a different future. What happened in Greece all those years ago that binds these two women together? And will uncovering the truth destroy everything…or set them free?

Lucy and her husband, Adam, have been best friends with another couple, Cora and Scott, for years. They vacation together, co-own a beach cottage, and their children are inseparable. So Lucy is devastated when, while looking at a colleague’s photos of a trip to the Maldives, she spots a picture of Scott, apparently on vacation with another woman. Then she learns that the woman in the photo has gone missing. Lucy can’t help but fear that Scott was involved. But searching for answers might uncover secrets about Scott, Cora and even her own husband that could destroy the picture-perfect lives they have built together. Or maybe she was never part of the picture at all. Is it possible that everyone knows more than they are letting on? If so, what are the consequences of exposing the truth?

With her flair for cleaning and proper etiquette, Molly Gray has risen through the ranks of the glorious five-star Regency Grand Hotel to become the esteemed Head Maid. But just as her life reaches a pinnacle state of perfection, her world is turned upside down when J. D. Grimthorpe, the world-renowned mystery author, drops dead on the hotel’s tearoom floor. When Detective Stark, Molly’s old foe, investigates the author’s unexpected demise, it becomes clear that this death was murder most foul. Suspects abound, and everyone wants to know: Who killed J. D. Grimthorpe? As the high-profile death threatens the hotel’s pristine reputation, Molly knows that she alone holds the key to unlocking the killer’s identity. But that key is buried deep in her past, as long ago she knew J. D. Grimthorpe.

Robin Lockwood is now a prominent defense attorney in Portland, Oregon, but a decade ago, she was a ranked and rising MMA fighter. Her career came to a quick end when she was knocked out and concussed in the first round by Mandy Kerrigan. Now the situation couldn't be more different, with Kerrigan arrested for the quadruple murder of the entire Finch family...and Kerrigan's only possible friend is the attorney she beat so many years ago. For Robin, it's no simple case: Margaret Finch was a lawyer working for vicious Russian mobsters, and was in the crosshairs of both the mobsters and the widower of a woman a client killed. To complicate matters further, the DA who Robin is facing is the man she's just started dating, the first person she's begun seeing seriously after her husband was killed.