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.

From the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Still Missing, More Than You Know, and Gossip comes the first entry in a stylish and witty mystery series featuring a pair of unlikely investigators--a shrewd novel of manners with a dark heart of murder at its center, set in small-town New England.Indulging their pleasure in travel and new experiences, recently retired private school head Maggie Detweiler and her old friend, socialite Hope Babbin, are heading to Maine. The trip--to attend a weeklong master cooking class at the picturesque Victorian-era Oquossoc Mountain Inn--is an experiment to test their compatibility for future expeditions.Hope and Maggie have barely finished their first aperitifs when the inn's tranquility is shattered by the arrival of Alexander and Lisa Antippas and Lisa's actress sister, Glory. Imperious and rude, these Hollywood one-percenters quickly turn the inn upside-down with their demanding behavior, igniting a flurry of speculation and gossip among staff and guests alike.But the disruption soon turns deadly. After a suspicious late-night fire is brought under control, Alex's charred body is found in the ashes. Enter the town's deputy sheriff, Buster Babbin, Hope's long-estranged son and Maggie's former student. A man who's finally found his footing in life, Buster needs a win. But he's quickly pushed aside by the "big boys," senior law enforcement and high-powered state's attorneys who swoop in to make a quick arrest.Maggie knows that Buster has his deficits and his strengths. She also knows that justice does not always prevail--and that the difference between conviction and exoneration too often depends on lazy police work and the ambitions of prosecutors. She knows too, after a lifetime of observing human nature, that you have a great advantage in doing the right thing if you don't care who gets the credit or whom you annoy.Feeling that justice could use a helping hand--as could the deputy sheriff--Maggie and Hope decide that two women of experience equipped with healthy curiosity, plenty of common sense, and a cheerfully cynical sense of humor have a useful role to play in uncovering the truth.

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.

Witty, wise, and hope-filled, Five Fortunes is a large-hearted tale of five vivid and unforgettable women who know where they've been but have no idea where they're going. A lively octogenarian, a private investigator, a mother and daughter with an unresolved past, and a recently widowed politician's wife share little else except a thirst for new dreams, but after a week at the luxurious health spa known as "Fat Chance" their lives will be intertwined in ways they couldn't have imagined. At a place where doctors, lawyers, spoiled housewives, movie stars, and captains of industry are stripped of the social markers that keep them from really seeing one another, unexpected friendships emerge, reminding us of the close links between the rich and the poor, fortune and misfortune, and the magic of chance.

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.

The New Girls is a resonant, engrossing novel about five girls during their formative prep-school years in the tumultuous mid-sixties. Into their reality of first-class trips to Europe, resort vacations, and deb parties enter the Vietnam War, the women's movement, and the sexual revolution. As the old traditions collide with the new society, the girls lose their innocence, develop a social conscience, and discover their sexuality -- blossoming into women shaped by their turbulent times.