England, September 1926

An engagement party at venerable Marsden Manor serves up annoyances big and small for Bright Young Thing Philippa Darling and her cousins, Christopher and Francis Astley.

There’s the scheming Lady Laetitia Marsden, now engaged to Christopher’s and Francis’s cousin (and Pippa’s personal nemesis) Crispin, Viscount St George.

There’s Laetitia’s brother, the handsy Lord Geoffrey, and his proclivity for trying to seduce anything in a skirt—by force, if necessary.

There’s the general feeling of ill-will towards Pippa’s and Christopher’s new friend the Graf von und zu Natterdorff—including the tension between the Graf and Francis, left over from the war Francis fought against the Germans.

There’s the handful of Crispin’s old flames who have received invitations, one of whom is expecting a child, and who is remarkably close-mouthed about exactly whose child it is.

And then, of course, there is the murder, and the other murder, and the attempted murder, and the other attempted murder…

All in all, it’s not quite the relaxing weekend in Dorset

England, July 1926

Several months ago, in the blackmail notes that Grimsby, the now-dead valet, compiled about everyone in the family, Philippa Darling learned about a young woman with a baby who showed up at Sutherland House in London, looking for the man who got her in the family way.

Crispin Astley, Viscount St George, scion of the Sutherlands, had been using the London house as his base when he was in Town carousing with his set of Bright Young People, so everyone, including Grimsby, assumed that Crispin was the guilty party. Crispin, however, swears that the baby isn't his.

Pippa never expected to have the opportunity to meet the mother and child herself, but that's just what happens one day in July. During a weekend party at Beckwith Place to celebrate Cousin Francis's 30th birthday, there they are: the young woman and the baby with the fair Sutherland hair and Astley blue eyes.

Everyone in the family is present for the celebration. Aunt Roz and Uncle Herbert, Francis and his new fiancée, Constance Peckham. Pippa, Cousin Christopher, and Cousin Crispin. Even Crispin's father, the recently widowed Harold, Duke of Sutherland, has showed up for his nephew's combination birthday celebration and engagement party.

And when the young woman winds up dead on the grounds of Beckwith Place, bashed over the head with a croquet mallet, the field is wide open. All the men in the family were present. One of them was responsible for getting her with child, and now someone—the same person or someone else—is responsible for ending her life. The only question is who?

England, August, 1926

For months now, Pippa's and Christopher's neighbor Florence Schlomsky, the manhunter with the teeth, has been roaming London society looking for an opportunity to trade her father's American fortune for a British title. Both the Astley cousins, Christopher and Crispin, have landed in her marital sights, a fact which has not endeared her to Pippa.

But when Mr. and Mrs. Schlomsky arrive from America and Flossie is nowhere to be found, Pippa is first in line to offer assistance. She may not have liked Flossie, but she didn't want anything bad to happen to her. And when a ransom note arrives at the Essex House Mansions demanding fifty thousand American dollars in exchange for the heiress's safe return, Pippa determines to do everything she can to get Flossie back to her parents.

But when the trail leads from the glittering salons of Mayfair to the grimy streets of Southwark and beyond, Pippa discovers that there were aspects to Florence Schlomsky she didn't realize were there, and perhaps it would have been better if she had never found out.