Bücher von Beth Gutcheon

Since retiring as the longtime head of a famous New York City private school, Maggie Detweiler is busier than ever. Chairing a team to evaluate the faltering Rye Manor School for Girls, she will determine whether the fabled school has a future at all. At a reception for the faculty and trustees to “welcome” Maggie’s team, no one seems keener for all to go well than Florence Meagher, a star teacher who is loved and respected despite her affliction—she can’t stop talking.Two days later, Florence’s body is found in the campus swimming pool. Is it possible that someone killed Florence just so she’d finally shut up?Maggie obviously knows schools, but she also knows something about investigating murder, having solved a mysterious death in Maine the previous year when the police went after the wrong suspect. She is soon joined by her madcap socialite friend, Hope, and together they set out to unmask the killer of the too-talkative teacher.

The owner of a small high-end dress shop on Manhattan's Upper East Side, Loviah "Lovie" French is the one to whom certain women turn when they want to dish in the dressing room—including Lovie's two best friends since boarding school, Dinah Wainwright and Avis Metcalf.Outspoken Dinah made a name for herself as a columnist covering New York's most fabulous; shy, proper Avis rose to prominence in the art world with her quiet manners and hard work. Despite their deep affection for Lovie, they have been allergic to each other for decades, uneasy acquaintances who are unwillingly bound to each other when Dinah's favorite son and Avis's only daughter fall in love. At the center of their orbit is Lovie, who knows everyone's secrets and manages them as wisely as she can. Which is not wisely enough, as things turn out—a fact that will have a shattering effect on all their lives.

Alex Selky, going on seven, kissed his mother goodbye and set off for school, a mere two blocks away. He never made it. Desperate to find him, his mother begins a vigil that lasts for days, then weeks, then months. She is treated first as a tragic figure, then as a grief-crazed hysteric, then as anreminder of the bad fortune that can befall us all. Against all hope, despite false leads and thedesertions of her friends and allies she believes with all her heart that somehow, somewhere, Alex will be found alive.Beth Gutcheon builds a heartrending suspense that culminates in a climax you will never forget.