Contemporary With a Side of Murder
Murder seems to have a way of finding these protagonists who just want some peace and stability. Between wedding celebrations in Nantucket to sensational murder trials, they’ll have to use their wits and everything in their arsenal if they don’t want to be the murderer’s next victim.
It’s Nantucket wedding season and the Otis-Winbury wedding is an event to remember with the groom’s wealthy parents sparing no expenses to host the most extravagant ceremony at their oceanfront estate. But it becomes memorable for the wrong reasons when a body is discovered in the harbor just hours before the ceremony. Everyone in the wedding party suddenly is a suspect. As Chief of Police Ed Kapenash interviews everyone, he discovers that no couple is as perfect as they seem.
Twenty-five years ago, Vinca Rockwell ran away with her philosophy professor after they began their secret affair and is never seen again. Her best friends Manon, Thomas, and Maxime committed a murder and buried the body in the gymnasium wall, a wall that’s about to be demolished for renovation. They haven’t spoken since but are about to meet again at their reunion, threatening to unravel the decades of lies that will reveal what truly happened on that deadly night.
Harriet Kealty, a police officer trying to redeem herself after a lapse in judgement, discovers an inscription in a secondhand book. It’s a plea calling for help and the note leads her to David Asha, who was last seen stepping off a cliff. Police suspect he wasn’t able to cope after his wife’s sudden death, but Harriet can’t help but wonder why he would leave his young son, Elliot, behind. Her investigation leads her to Elliot’s surrogate father and her past love—Ben Elmys, who may also be a murderer.
At the exclusive Brodsky Workshop, photography students Julian Ladd and Rye Adler meet and become unlikely roommates. They both become fascinated with their beautiful and talented classmate, Magda, and come to intimately know her. Twenty years later, they’re on separate paths. Rye is at the top of his field, photographing celebrities. Magda reenters his life, forcing him to reckon with his life as an artist and his search for a missing boy becomes his own fight for survival. Months later, Julian discovers Rye’s obituary, making it sound like a suicide. Julian decides to attend the funeral and with no casket and no body, Julian not only questions Rye’s death but the foundations of his own life.
Chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta receives shocking news during a sensational murder trial where she is a star witness. The judge’s sister has been found dead. It appears to be a home invasion, but Kay wonders why nothing was stolen and why the garden is strewn with dead plants and insects. She soon recognizes the telltale signs of the unthinkable and fears that the worst is yet to come.
Hen is an illustrator who has settled for a quiet life in a new house outside of Boston, Massachusetts with her husband, Lloyd. With the right meds, she’s able to control her bipolar disorder and finally feels like she’s found some stability and peace. But the calm dissolves when she meets the neighbors and spots a sports trophy that looks exactly like the one missing from the home of a young man who was killed two years ago. She knows this because of her fascination with this unsolved murder, an obsession she doesn’t talk about anymore but hasn’t been unable to shake. Could her neighbor Matthew be a killer or is this all in her head?
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Emily Hoang is a writer and editor, who is obsessed with haunted houses, ghosts, and dreams. More info can be found on her website.