Peril At Somner House

After her adventures in Murder on the Cliffs, young Daphne du Maurier travels to a remote island off the coast of Cornwall to visit the estate of Lord and Lady Trevalyan. Somner House, enchanting amidst lush exotic wilderness and only a moment's walk to the sea, beguiles Daphne, but just as looming winter storms begin to envelop the island, the Lord is found murdered while the Lady is found in the arms of a lover. Even Daphne with her torrid imagination could not have dreamed that she would become ensnared in the vile, villainous schemes being hatched within the walls of Somner House—or that a handsome stranger would inspire her to plumb the depths of a great mystery.

On an island off the coast of Cornwall, Lord Max Trevalyan is found dead of severe head wounds. The many suspects include Trevalyan's widow, her lover, and the gardener, whose daughter gave birth to Max's son. It's up to young future author Daphne du Maurier to find the killer.

Five personal essays and one short play by six gifted and bestselling American writers—Meg Wolitzer, Louise Erdrich, Beverly Lowry, Diane Johnson, the late Veronica Geng, and the late Alice Adams—capture compelling memories of summer. The subjects include swimming, gardening, cabins in the wilderness, days spent reading, summer love, and a thwarted attempt to go bowling on a hot night.

Young Daphne du Maurier must defend a friend who has been accused of murder in the next installment in the beguiling mystery series that readers of Rebecca will love. It's the summer of 1927 and aspiring novelist Daphne du Maurier is headed to Cornwall for the wedding of her dear friend Ellen Hamilton to American millionaire Teddy Grimshaw. Having met during the chaos of the Great War, the lovers were cruelly separated for nearly a decade by circumstance and family interference. Now the wedding ceremony—held at Thornleigh Manor, a grand estate that has been in the Hamilton family for five centuries—marks a renewed hope for the future. But joy quickly turns to devastation when Teddy is found murdered right after the wedding. Wealth, jealousy, and buried secrets provide no shortage of suspects—or danger to everyone at Thornleigh, including Daphne herself. When Ellen is suspected of being the murderess, the independent-minded Daphne, along with the dashing Major Browning, is inspired to uncover the truth, and to write her next novel.

“[A] vivid . . . quest for roots. . . . Splendid.” —The New York Times Book Review Growing up in the small river town of Moline, Illinois, Diane Johnson always dreamed of venturing off to see the world—and did. Now having traveled widely and lived part-time in Paris for many years, she is stung when a French friend teases her about Americans’ indifference to history. Could it be true? The j’accuse haunts Diane and inspires her to dig into her family’s past, working back from the Friday night football of her youth to the adventures illuminated in the letters and memoirs of her stalwart pioneer ancestors—beginning with a lonely young soldier who came to America from France in 1711. As enchanting as her bestselling novels, Flyover Lives is a moving examination of identity and the “wispy but material” family ghosts who shape us. As Johnson pays tribute to her deep Midwestern roots, she captures the perpetual tug-of-war between the magnetic pull of home and our lust for escape and self-invention.

The most popular mystery writer of all time concocted a rich recipe of intrigue, character, and setting. All of Agatha Christie's 66 detective novels are covered here in great detail. Each chapter begins with general comments on a novel's geographical and historical setting, identifying current events, fashions, fads and popular interests that relate to the story. A concise plot summary and comprehensive character listing follow, and each novel is discussed within Christie's overall body of work, with an emphasis on the development of themes, narrative technique, and characters over the course of her prolific career. An appendix translates Poirot's French and defines the British idiomatic words and phrases that give Christie's novels so much of their flavor.