Chapter One

Jacksonville, Florida, USA
Thursday, 7 p.m. EST

THE PHONE STARTED to vibrate its way across the kitchen counter. I hated that. It shook when it went unanswered, bleating like a wounded sheep.

Pay attention to me. Answer me.

But it was my day off, and my phone had been set to DO NOT DISTURB. Yet it still rang. I was watching the NCAA basketball tournament, as was my right on my day off. My Florida Gators were struggling more than they should as the favorite in their first-round game. I had a little bit of money but mainly pride on the line.

Still bleating.

I read an article recently, saying members of Generation Z were now offended if you called unannounced. Text before you call, they so arrogantly professed. Make an appointment to hear any voice associated with the participation-trophy generation.

Being neither a Gen Zer nor a trophy, I didn’t know who was calling. Someone in my contact list had called in rapid succession, working around the do-not-bother-me setting. So, either something was up, or the spam callers had cracked another smartphone code.

I got up and went to the kitchen and to the phone. I wanted another beer anyway.

The name on the screen said Cole Nathan, one of my college buddies.

Not work. Thank you, basketball gods.

I was fully expecting we would immediately jump into a conversation about why our star player was launching three-pointers without anyone under the basket to rebound. The phenom had also seemingly forgotten how to pass.

I picked up the phone and just started talking, “Can you believe this guy? I mean, I know he’s gonna be in the NBA next year, but he’s like one step from half-court and letting it fly.”

“Pete, I’m not watching the game, sorry,” Cole said. “I need to talk to you about something.”

“Oh, okay,” I said. “What’s going on?” “Uncle Scotty is in jail.”

“What?” I said. I had to think for a second. I had met Cole’s uncle a few times in college. We went out to bars with him. “What happened?”

“He got arrested yesterday at the airport in Singapore.” “You’re kidding. Shit. For what?”

“Drug possession.”

“Damn. That sucks. Singapore?” Questions were flowing through my head faster than I could articulate them. “Um, I don’t really know what to say, man. I can’t even remember Scotty doing drugs. It was usually fun, but it’s been years since you have even mentioned him. Did he have a problem?

And wait, Singapore?”

“He’s not a drug dealer, if that’s what you’re asking,” Cole said.

“I don’t know what I’m asking. Let’s start with what happened and what you know.”

“I’m not exactly sure what’s going on. We got a report they found drugs in his luggage when he was going to Singapore on business.”

“What kind of business?” I asked. Scott was always pretty slick.

“He works for a real estate fund. He’s been there before.

It’s a big mess,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Cole. It’s terrible. Do you need a referral for a lawyer? I can talk to my brother. I don’t think this is the kind of thing he does, but he knows a lot of other lawyers.”

“Well, he’s got a lawyer over there, and we’re talking to some guys here. But we think it might hit the news and be bad, and that’s why I thought about you.”

“Okay, Cole, you know I cover Jacksonville, right? Every once in a while, something crazy happens and I cover national news, but I’m not sure how I can help.”

“Uncle Scotty lives in Jacksonville,” Cole said.

“He does?” I said, putting down the not-yet-opened new beer and looking for a pen.

“Yes, he does.”

“Oh, okay, if a business guy from Jacksonville just got arrested in Singapore, I’m guessing our desk already knows about it. I don’t know who’s going to cover this or even if it’ll get assigned to somebody. Do you guys want the world to know about this? I mean, I can’t kill it if the desk is on it, but I might be able to help. What do you want?”

“Pete, we’re worried the world will think my uncle is a drug dealer. You know him. I don’t know what happened, but something is not right about this. It makes no sense. I need help figuring out what is going on. My uncle is rich. He has no reason to smuggle drugs.”

“Was he traveling alone?” I asked. “Did he ever get mar-ried?”

“My uncle, married? That’s a good one.” Cole said. “He was traveling alone, baching it like always.”

“Got it. Well, I was supposed to be off today to watch the game, but it looks like our Gators have this one under control.”

Famous last words.

The Gators were up eight with seven minutes left. “I will make some calls, see what I can find out, and call you back. Is this the best number?”

“Yes and thanks,” Cole said.

As I hung up, our star guard again launched a bomb from the mid-court logo, which clanged off the rim and bounced over the backboard. Not sure who was giving me more heartburn—the star player or Cole’s uncle.

I called the breaking news desk at WJAX-TV where I work as a general assignment reporter and sometimes investigative journalist. My friend and colleague Olivia Marquez, a breaking news digital journalist and all-around technology maven answered.

“I thought you were off,” she said.

“I am, but when did that ever stop me from bugging you?” I said. “Have you heard anything about a Florida businessman being arrested in Singapore on drug charges?”

“Is he from Jacksonville?” “He is.”

“I think I would have noticed that.” I could hear her typing, and I turned to take another look at the game.

A moment later, she found it. “Well, here’s something from the Associated Press about American executive Scott Wilkins arrested in Singapore, I guess yesterday.”

“That’s the one,” I said.

“But isn’t it already tomorrow over there, like a major difference, twelve hours ahead?”

There were several questions in there. Olivia had a su-premely quick brain. “Says he entered the country from a flight from San Francisco, and he originated in Orlando.”

“Gotcha. Well, he’s from Jacksonville.” “Do you know him?”

“Well, sort of. He’s my friend’s uncle. I met him when I was in college. We painted the town a few times, among other things. The family is freaking out.”

“Can’t blame them. What do you want me to do with this?”

“Do me a favor and just hold tight on it. I will call you back.”

Cole answered on the first ring. “Pete, what do you know?” he asked.

“It’s on the AP wire with his full name and that he’s an American businessman arrested in Singapore on drug charges. It’s short. The story is tagged Orlando because I guess he flew out of there. I’m guessing the story hasn’t gotten any traction because he’s not from Orlando and the time difference.”

“What do you mean about Orlando?”

“Stories come across the wire tagged with locations, kind of like keywords. In Jacksonville, we care about stories relevant to Jacksonville. In Orlando, they are looking for stories tagged to there. Doesn’t mean anything except it kind of gives you and your family some time to try to get ahead of it.”

“Okay, so it’s not all over the place?”

“Not yet. But it may not turn into anything because, you know, the news gods are fickle. Right now, Orlando news stations might be trying to confirm he is from Orlando, but they aren’t finding anything because he’s not. So the story is in limbo.”

“You are in a weird business, Lemaster,” Cole said with a sigh.

“Yes, I am. Listen, it’s up to you. It’s my day off. I can do nothing on this story and be fine with it, but I can’t prevent somebody else from covering it. If you want me to do something today, then you have a bit more control because, well, we’re buddies, and I’m gonna make sure it’s balanced. Honestly, we would probably start with a short item that this local guy was locked up in Singapore. If I get you on the record, confirming it and the basic info, then we can pull a short story together, maybe thirty seconds or so. Just a short item. We don’t have a lot. We would need to get a picture.” I paused. “Or I could watch the end of the game, and we can wait it out and talk tomorrow. It’s up to you.”

“My uncle has been locked in a fucking jail cell in Singa-pore for like the past two days, so whatever they’re doing now hasn’t gotten him out,” he said, somewhere between pissed off and distressed. “So I say let’s try to generate some support. We’ve got to maybe try to get the government to help us or somebody to help us.”

“I get it,” I said.

“Do you know what the penalties are for drug possession in Singapore, Pete?”

“I have no idea.”

“Google it. It’s scary. We need to do the story.”

“Okay, Cole. So, let me get this on the record and make it official. You are confirming that your uncle, business executive Scott Wilkins of Jacksonville, was arrested in Singapore on drug charges?”

“Yep, 100 percent. He lives in Ponte Vedra Beach.” “And you are saying he is being wrongfully detained?” I added, coaching-prodding in a way I technically should not do.

“Absolutely. Singapore has made a huge mistake, and we need the support of the US government to get him out. How does that sound?”

“That helps me. Do you have a picture of him?” “I will send you one.”

“Okay, I will let you know if I need anything else.” We hung up.

I called Olivia back.

“Hey, so is Rod there?” I asked.

Rod Kirby was the acting general manager of the station and my boss.

“Yeah, he’s in his office. Do you want to talk to him?” she said.

“No, not yet. Please do me a favor and take this down. I can confirm business executive Scott Wilkins of Ponte Vedra Beach has been detained on drug charges in Singapore. Looks like it happened two days ago. I’m trying to get you a picture. The family in the US is saying he has been wrongly detained, and they want the US government to intervene. Please take this to Rod and see what he wants to do with it.”

“Okay,” she said.

My phone chimed, and I opened a text message from Cole with an image attached, and there he was—Scott “Uncle Scotty” Wilkins—just as I remembered him. He had light brown hair just past collar length, with a little bit of gray in the temples, and steely blue eyes that accented high, chiseled cheekbones. In the photo, he had a light tan, a big smile, showcasing perfect teeth, and a day or two of manicured stubble. He looked like a model, straight off a billboard. He was wearing a casual linen long-sleeved shirt with a sweater pretzeled over his shoulders in a way no one ever wore—just people who were posing for pictures. He wore jeans and unfinished leather loafers, no socks. The perfect, eligible rich guy online dating photo.

“I just got his photo—sending it to you now,” I said.

I forwarded the image to her and a moment later heard her phone beep.

“Oh my god, he’s hot,” she said, giggling. “Is he single?” “Well, I don’t know, but he’s not available because he’s in jail in Singapore.”

“He’s ridiculously good-looking. Gotta share this with the girls in the office.”

“How about talking to Rod first?” I suggested, hoping to bring her back to earth.

“Yeah, I’m on it.”

“Thank you, Olivia.” I hung up and texted Cole that we were probably going to run an item with the photo, and I would stay in touch.

I turned the basketball tournament back on, watching my Gators advance to the next round, not knowing I had just lit a most unusual fuse.

***

Excerpt from The Pawn by John David. Copyright 2026 by John P David. Reproduced with permission from John P David. All rights reserved.

Prologue

Vatican City, Rome – February 1740

The first symptom of the poisoning began as a fever.

Sitting at one of two long, white-silk-draped tables in the Sistine Chapel, along with sixty-seven of his fellow cardinal-electors, Pietro Ottoboni cast his vote for pope on the eighth day of the conclave to replace the late Pope Clement XII.

Enfeebled by fever, the seventy-three-year-old Ottoboni made his way toward the front of the chapel to a small altar below Michelangelo’s majestic fresco The Last Judgment, dropped his ballot onto a brass saucer, then tipped the saucer, letting the ballot fall into the large brass urn beneath it.

A few moments later, having returned to his seat, the cardinal collapsed onto the table, the high temperature having sapped his energy. Shocked, the other cardinals stood to better see what was happening to their colleague. The master of papal liturgical celebrations suspended the conclave while they moved Ottoboni to his apartment under the care of a Vatican physician.

Long considered favorite among the papabili to succeed Pope Clement, Pietro Ottoboni was born in the Most Serene Republic of Venice to a rich and noble family, whose most distinguished member was his grand-uncle, Pope Alexander VIII. Ottoboni had held every important post in the Vatican during an illustrious career and, as cardinal-bishop to several churches in Italy, his annual salary exceeded fifty thousand gold scudi—the present-day equivalent of six million dollars per year.

Cardinal Ottoboni had been a prolific paramour with a countless number of lovers, many of whom were married to the great patricians of Venice. In fact, the famous masks unique to Venetians were introduced not to ward off the plague, as many later believed, but to officially disguise the wearer’s identity—thus permitting anyone, noble or peasant, to do or say whatever one pleased. With this ingenious permissiveness, affari di cuore—affairs of the heart—were as common as the fleet of gondolas plying the canals of the celebrated city, without legal recourse. Having taken full advantage of this liberal device, Cardinal Ottoboni was known to have produced up to seventy children in his lifetime among his various mistresses.

Though he lived well in Rome’s grand Palazzo della Cancelleria, Ottoboni’s greatest passions were music and art, and he was a generous patron to some of the most renowned masters in both fields: Arcangelo Corelli, Alessandro Scarlatti, Giuseppe Crespi, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese—and most of all, to his close friend and protégé, the prodigious maestro di violino of Venice, Antonio Vivaldi.

As he lay on his deathbed, Ottoboni summoned Vivaldi to his side. In a low, rasping voice, the cardinal confided to his friend a tale of great importance, a scandalous operation run by the notoriously corrupt Cardinal Niccolò Coscia in league with the feared secret Mafia organization known as the Camorra.

In fact, he added with struggling breath, he was convinced it was Coscia, acting on orders from the Camorra, who had poisoned him to keep him from acting on what he knew. With information gleaned from one of his many spies, Ottoboni had discovered the ongoing scandal days earlier and approached Cardinal Coscia with a warning that he and his Camorra would soon be out of business, at least as far as the Vatican was concerned. Were it not for his required attendance in the papal conclave, he would have put a stop to it sooner, especially if he was elected pope, an elevation to supreme power that was expected by everyone.

The following day, however, Cardinal Ottoboni succumbed to the poison, killed for a secret now known only to Antonio Vivaldi.

Like most Italians, Vivaldi survived cautiously within the Camorra’s Venetian sphere of influence. The secret society’s tentacles reached into everyone’s life, and their strict enforcement of the seal of omertà—the sacred code of silence—ensured clan activities remained discreet and wholly within la familia. The family.

Since the late seventeenth century, the Camorra had carved out its territories, starting in Naples and moving northward into the Lombardy and Veneto regions of Italy, encompassing its most lucrative prizes, Milan and Venice. Competing with La Cosa Nostra in Sicily and the ‘Ndrangheta of Calabria, the Camorra’s criminal enterprises included prostitution, gambling, smuggling, kidnapping, and art theft—but also the unusual niche of producing and selling fine art forgeries of the highest order.

During the earlier reign of Pope Benedict XIII, who cared little for managing his vast realm of Papal States, Cardinal Niccolò Coscia oversaw all Vatican government operations, taking advantage of his authority to carry out substantial financial abuses, virtually draining the papal treasury. But his ongoing misdeeds eventually caught up with him. In 1731, he was charged with corruption, tried and convicted to ten years’ imprisonment, and excommunicated from the Church.

However, still not without influence, he managed to get his heavy sentence commuted to a mere fine. He was also mysteriously reinstated as a cardinal, allowing him to take part in the papal conclave of 1740—the one during which Cardinal Ottoboni had died.

* * *

With Ottoboni out of the way, Cardinal Niccolò Coscia could now carry out his master plan without hindrance. In his not-so-secret role as capo of the Roman Camorra, Coscia led development of the Veneto branch of the Mafia clan, based in Venice and headquartered in his own newly acquired Palazzo Feudatario on the Grand Canal. Purchased with funds he had discreetly absconded from the Vatican treasury, Feudatario would be a most fitting place to carry out his planned forgery operation of the Vatican’s most profound works of art.

Niccolò Coscia was a meticulous diarist and, owing to all the business he conducted outside the Church, he had created the first book to record the activities of his new organization, naming it Il Giornale Coscia della Camorra Veneta—The Coscia Journal of the Veneto Camorra. In it he would secretly record careful notations of all paintings by artist and title, including each work’s provenance and to whom the forgeries or originals were sold, depending on which he chose to return to the Vatican—for many were prominently displayed in public, while most were simply returned to the Vatican’s vast art storage vaults, unseen by anyone.

The Coscia Journal would be passed down to each capintesta, head of the Veneto Camorra, for generations.

Unfortunately for Coscia, Cardinal Ottoboni’s spies had discovered not only the Camorra’s abhorrent plan for art forgeries, but the very existence of the Coscia Journal for recording such transactions. At that point Ottoboni’s death was preordained, for no one could ever know such proof existed.

* * *

Antonio Vivaldi, who at age twenty-five was ordained a Roman Catholic priest, was now at a crossroads. He feared possessing knowledge of the treacherous secret passed on to him by his esteemed patron in his dying moments. Putting himself at odds with the Camorra was not just an unappealing prospect; it could end up costing him his life, depending on what he did with what he knew.

But Cardinal Ottoboni had one last request of his protégé.

Intent on stopping the sinful and unlawful activities of Cardinal Coscia, Ottoboni had pleaded with Vivaldi to see that Coscia was brought to justice, to pay for his felonious actions. Distressed by letting his friend and mentor die without the satisfaction of such a promise, Vivaldi agreed to do what he could. He would ensure that the authorities were informed, the Coscia Journal would be found, and the matter would be settled.

After the cardinal’s stately funeral, Vivaldi waited for the right moment to fulfill his promise. But as he waited, he became more apprehensive. He was just a lowly priest, after all, and not a very good one at that. The violin was his life, and teaching it was his life’s work. Besides, who would believe him? Where was the proof? And what would the Camorra do to him if he were to expose its business? He had seen the results of their retribution—those who crossed the Mafia were dealt with harshly. Beheadings were not uncommon, and those who weren’t beheaded were drawn and quartered—alive. No, he must find a way to honor his pledge without exposing himself to such horrible consequences.

An idea came to him: he would hide the messages in plain sight, in his musical compositions.

Picking up a sheet of staff lined manuscript paper, Vivaldi began to assemble the first of many, his Scherzo Tiaseno in Sol.

* * *

Venice, Italy—Present Day

An enormous flight of pigeons, hundreds of them, flocked overhead, diving for potato chips and bits of bread sticks tourists had enthusiastically tossed out for them, as Father Michael Dominic and Hana Sinclair made their way across the Piazza San Marco.

Despite the ban on pigeon-feeding in St. Mark’s Square, little children were oblivious to the law and more amused by the flapping gray-and-white spectacle than frightened by the few gendarmerie patrolling the square, whose policing efforts to stop the feeding were futile. Venetian health experts estimate over 130,000 pigeons had roosted in the historic center—well over optimal concentrations for such a small public space—and efforts to rid the city of the determined birds had failed miserably. The damage to the marble buildings and statuary was considerable, not to mention possible pathogenic health hazards.

Locals knew it was often prudent to cover one’s head with a newspaper or magazine when crossing the vast piazza, lest strollers subject themselves to the inevitable bombardment of bird droppings from above.

An old hand at the practice, Father Dominic had kept pages of the newspaper he had read at breakfast for that very purpose, knowing he and Hana had to cross the piazza in order to get to Venice’s Biblioteca Marciana, the Library of Saint Mark.

The director of the library had requested the Vatican’s help with a planned exhibition of manuscripts held in its stacks, and as Prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives, Michael Dominic had accepted the invitation, while also taking a week’s vacation time in the fabled city. At only thirty-one years old, his access to the Vatican’s vast number of historical manuscripts still humbled him. The Biblioteca Marciana was yet one more repository of ancient wonders that fascinated him.

Lovingly named La Serenissima by Italians devoted to its “most serene” natural and historical wonders, Venice was also Michael Dominic’s favorite city in the world. He loved its vibrancy, its rich history as a major world trading port up to and through the Renaissance period and, of course, the inherent romantic nature of the people and their ancient ways.

“I’m so glad you could join me, Hana,” Dominic said as they walked through the piazza. “Have you ever experienced Carnivale before?”

Holding the newspaper awkwardly over her stylish wide brim straw hat, Hana replied with a contented sigh. “I was here once, years ago, but Carnivale had just ended. I’ve been meaning to be here for the real festivities for some time now, and since my editors wanted a piece on the celebration for Le Monde’s Weekend Section, I volunteered for the assignment.”

She looked up at the priest and smiled. “Thanks for letting me tag along with you, Michael. I don’t mind that you have a little business to attend to. I need some time off myself and can always float around in a gondola and take notes while you’re occupied.”

Dominic laughed as he removed the newspaper from over his head, having passed the worst pigeon zone. He took Hana’s paper and tossed them both in a trash receptacle alongside the library façade. “I can just see you now, laid out on a shiny black gondola, that fetching hat drawing everyone’s eye as you cruise the canals. A fashion photographer’s dream. But let’s have some fun together while we’re here as well.”

“Agreed. I can get some writing done after dinner each night,” she said with a sly grin. “So, what’s in this library that you’ve been asked to weigh in on?”

“I’m meeting with Paolo Manetti, the curator of the Marciana’s Cardinal Bessarion Library, a special wing containing the original founder’s collection of books and precious manuscripts from 1468. The Vatican has an original translation of Homer’s Iliad, a companion version to his Odyssey, but the Marciana has the oldest actual texts of the Iliad. Manetti has asked me to consider lending ours to the Marciana for a temporary exhibition on Homer. They also have the only autograph copy of commentary on the Odyssey from the twelfth century, so it should be a fine showcase.”

Fascinated as she was by Dominic’s explanation, Hana’s eyes glazed as the warm sun took hold of her, her white cotton midi skirt fluttering in the light breeze. They had passed the tall brick Campanile and were now walking through the piazzetta between the Marciana Library and the Doge’s Palace, heading toward the entrance to the Grand Canal. It wasn’t quite noon yet, the appointed time for Dominic’s meeting, so they settled onto a stone bench near the traghetto, the gondola landing overlooking the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore on the island across the lagoon. Vaporetti, gondolas, and sleek mahogany water taxis plied the calm waters as they sat there, each in their own dreamy state of mind, an effect Venice had on every visitor.

As the tower bells of the Campanile struck twelve, Dominic leaned back for a deep stretch to rouse himself, then stood and reached out for Hana’s hand to help her up. With one last glance over the lagoon, they headed toward the library.

Chapter 1

Present Day

The entrance to the Marciana Library Palace—heavy wooden doors flanked by two larger-than-life Greek marble statues—opened into the opulent vestibule, where a two-flight staircase took visitors to the upper loggias.

Looking up as they walked the marble halls, Hana fixated on the ceiling, which featured twenty-one roundels, circular oil paintings by seven notable Renaissance artists commissioned in 1556. They looked as fresh today as at the time they were painted, Hana mused, overwhelmed by their unusual spherical beauty. Reaching one of the reading rooms, sunlight streamed in from the high glass ceiling, bathing the three-story room in a diffused natural light. Surrounding the reading tables on all sides were a series of Doric arches with a handsome frieze on one wall featuring rosy-faced cherubs and garlands of fruit and flowers.

A slim, well-dressed man with long, black hair who looked to be in his fifties was walking toward them, a welcoming smile on his face. Dominic smiled in response as the man approached.

“Padre Michael, welcome back to the Marciana!” he beamed as he extended his hand.

“Paolo! What a great pleasure to see you again. This is my friend and colleague, Hana Sinclair. Hana, this is Paolo Manetti, curator of the Bessarion Library here.”

The three exchanged handshakes and pleasantries. Then Manetti turned, gesturing for them to follow him.

“We’ll be using my private office to view the Iliad. Better to keep tourists from flocking around us. I already have it set up.”

He led them through the upper loggia and down a corridor leading to various offices, entering a corner room that overlooked the piazzetta and the lagoon.

“Not only do you have a stunning library here, Signor Manetti,” Hana remarked, “but you probably have the best office in the building!”

Manetti grinned shyly. “Please, call me Paolo, Miss Sinclair. And yes, I am very fortunate to have such a wondrous place to work. What you see around you is my life. Like our friend Michael here, my love for antiquities of the Old World has no bounds.”

Dominic nodded in agreement, then turned to his companion. “Hana, if you’d like to better explore the library while Paolo and I are working, please feel free. We should only be a half hour or so. Take it all in; it truly is a marvelous old building filled with treasures you won’t find anywhere else.”

“I’ll do that, thanks. Just come find me when you’re ready.” Hana turned and left the office, making her way back to the reading rooms and their glorious artworks and statuary.

A large table in the center of Manetti’s office held several reference books, various implements for examining documents—a digital microscope, magnifying glass, blacklight, leather sandbag weights—and several large parchment manuscripts which had been laid out on it. One in particular was the chief item of interest: the only copy of the commentary on Homer’s Odyssey written entirely by the hand of the author.

Putting on a pair of white gloves, Dominic handled the manuscript guardedly, gazing at the beautiful script by the hand of Eustathius of Thessalonica, the Byzantine scholar and rhetorician of the twelfth century.

“This is our finest treasure, Michael, and one of the oldest in the library,” Manetti said. “It will be one of the principal features of our exhibition. But now, look at this.”

With a gentle flourish, he reached across the table and pulled over two comparable manuscripts.

“These are Venetus A and Venetus B, the oldest texts of Homer’s Iliad, with centuries of Greek scholia written in the margins.”

As Dominic recalled, since the first century, ancient commentators known as scholiasts would insert grammatical or explanatory notations, even critical commentary, in the margins of the manuscripts of early authors. Over time, centuries in fact, successive copyists or those who owned a particular manuscript altered the scholia, and sometimes the practice expanded so much that there was no longer room for scholia in the margins, so it became necessary to produce them as separate works. No copy machines, just dedicated scribes working with Egyptian reed pens and feather quills to patiently reproduce one-of-a-kind originals.

“These are truly extraordinary, Paolo,” Dominic declared, his hands shaking slightly as he held the ancient parchments. “I can certainly see why you’d want to share these in your exhibition. I can confidently say the Vatican will cooperate in any way we can. I’ll make arrangements for the original translation of Homer’s Iliad to be couriered to you when I return to Rome. I assume you’ll have appropriate security arrangements in place?”

“Of course, Michael. Apart from our own security detail, the federal Carabinieri has offered to provide full protection for us. We are simply the custodians of these masterpieces, but they are part of Italy’s proud heritage and the government takes that responsibility quite seriously.

“And thank you for your generous contribution, Michael,” he continued. “Your Iliad will be in excellent hands, I can assure you.”

“When we spoke last week,” Dominic said, “you mentioned another piece you wanted to discuss?”

Manetti turned somber. “Yes, there is something else I need to show you, and I’d like to get your opinion on it. This came to us recently from a local donor who wishes to remain publicly anonymous, and while its value is undeniable and a welcomed donation to our collection, I am not quite sure what to make of its meaning.”

The curator rummaged about the other manuscripts on the table, his gloved hands repositioning each document carefully, until he found what appeared to be an autograph musical manuscript, with staff lines and bars of musical notations, placed inside a small Mylar protective sleeve. While it was in relatively good condition, given its apparent antiquity, its corners had been chipped and there were many creases across the paper, as if someone had folded it many times at some point. Its size was quite small, a half sheet of standard paper at most.

“Well, this looks interesting, though I must admit I know little about musical manuscripts. Who is it by?” Dominic asked.

As he peered closely at the manuscript, Hana returned from her brief tour of the library and walked up to stand silently next to the two men. She glanced at the object of their attention while Manetti continued.

“This, my friend, was penned by the hand of Venice’s own maestro di violino Antonio Vivaldi. He gave it the title Scherzo Tiaseno in Sol, and it appears to be a scherzo in the truest, most literal meaning of that word—a joke! It is a fair enough piece of music, but nowhere near the level one would expect from a Baroque master like Vivaldi. If it is a joke, then the question is, why? And for whom? There must be more than meets the ear.

“This is marked as page two, so there may still exist a page one somewhere. The donor was rather circumspect on the matter, but as Vivaldi was her sixth great-grand-uncle, the provenance is well established.” Manetti looked up at Dominic questioningly and shrugged.

As Hana read the notes, she weighed in. “You’re right, Paolo. This isn’t anything close to what Vivaldi was known to have composed. And scherzos are normally in three, like a waltz, but this has the bar lines in the wrong place. There must be some other meaning to it.”

“You read music?!” Dominic asked her, somewhat taken aback.

“Of course, I studied music for years at St. Stevens School, and I play both the piano and cello,” she replied, a shy smile playing across her face.

“Will wonders never cease with you?” Dominic asked, grinning mischievously.

“Oh, please,” she said modestly. “We all have our secret talents. And I can hardly travel around with a cello.”

Turning to the curator, she asked, “Paolo, may I have a closer look at this?”

“Of course, signorina,” he said encouragingly.

Hana accepted the Mylar sleeve from Dominic and took a seat by one of the windows. Reading the music, she hummed the notes, emitting a series of high, low, and mid-range sounds which produced no tune whatsoever.

“Okay, this is really strange. There is nothing here that might even imply that an artist with Vivaldi’s genius was creating anything good, much less great. But why would he do that? From what I know, he wrote beautiful music feverishly, wasting not a precious second on something like this. But there must be a reason.”

“I completely agree, signorina,” Manetti said, nodding. “But what are we to do with this? We must have some kind of explanation for such an artifact if we are to display it.”

Hana had a thought. “Paolo, can you make a copy of this for me? I have an old friend, Dr. Livia Gallo, my former music teacher at St. Stevens, who is an expert in Vivaldi and other Baroque masters. Maybe she has some idea of what this might represent?”

Manetti was delighted. “Yes! I would be happy to provide you with a copy if it helps to better understand this. You must assure me that you will not share it with anyone else except your colleague, yes? Until we understand it better, I wouldn’t want speculations to be awkward for our donor.”

“Yes, of course, only Dr. Gallo will see it. For that matter, it’s small enough that I can just take a photo of it with my iPhone. Would that be acceptable?”

“Better yet,” Manetti replied. “That way there are no loose copies to get lost. Oh, and please do not use the flash.”

Hana returned the manuscript to the table, removed her phone from her bag, then took a full frame shot of the piece under natural light.

“Paolo,” Dominic asked, “might we get an introduction to your donor, this Vivaldi descendant? Hana and I may be able to get more relevant information from her that can assist Dr. Gallo. Where does she live?”

“Here in Venice, in one of the great palazzos on the Grand Canal. I don’t think the contessa would mind at all, actually. She’s quite the conversationalist.”

“A contessa?!” Hana asked, surprised.

“Oh yes, she comes from a very old noble line herself and married well, besides. Contessa Donatella Vivaldi Durazzo. She must be in her eighties now, a delightful woman, very generous in her philanthropy. She is one of the jewels of Venice, a wonderful patron of the arts, adored by everyone. She lives in Palazzo Grimaldi in the Dorsoduro, not far from the Guggenheim Museum. I would be pleased to make an introduction.”

“Excellent! We’ll be here all week, Paolo, and it would be a treat to see one of the famed palazzos on the Grand Canal,” Dominic said excitedly. “Not to mention meeting Italian nobility.”

Manetti smiled assuringly at his old friend.

“We’re staying at the Ca’ Sagredo, Paolo,” Hana said. “You can reach us there, but here’s my mobile number if you need us at any time.” She wrote down her number on a slip of paper and handed it to Manetti.

“Grazie, signorina. I will make the call this evening and let you know when she is available.”

“Where to now?” Hana asked Dominic as they left the building, having said their goodbyes to Manetti.

“I thought we’d have a bite of lunch at Quadri, then saunter over to St. Mark’s Basilica and say hello to a friend of mine from my seminary days. We’ve come all this way, and I’d hate to miss seeing him.”

“Lead the way,” Hana said breezily, placing her wide-brimmed straw hat back on her head. “I’m ready for some fresh seafood, aren’t you?”

“You bet. Just watch out for pigeons, though, as I’ve tossed the newspapers.”

Chapter 2

Among the many fine palazzos lining the Grand Canal is an understated, three-story ocher palace, somewhat more slender than its neighbors but nonetheless impressive. Its more observable features include a grand entrance off the gondola traghetto, with a black, scalloped awning over the brick staircase leading up from the water’s edge; several full-width balconies with ornamental balustrades at each end; heavily draped, arched picture windows overlooking the canal—and a cadre of armed security guards posted around the grounds of Palazzo Feudatario.

As a glossy mahogany water taxi approached the dock, two beefy men appeared from the palazzo’s entrance to greet the sole visitor on board, a priest called to administer last rites to the dying master of the house—a man known to all of Venice as Don Lucio Gambarini, the capintesta, or head-in-chief of the Veneto Camorra.

A stout man in his sixties, Don Gambarini had suffered a paralyzing stroke some weeks prior, and as his health had further declined, his death was not unexpected. In the meantime, the capintriti, heads of the twelve districts under Don Gambarini’s leadership, had assembled in the grand house, set to squabbling as to who would take over as leader of the clan when the great capintesta met his end.

But that was hardly on Gambarini’s mind when Father Carlo Rinaldo entered the formal master bedroom to hear the Don’s confession and administer extreme unction, the final anointing with last rites before death. Rinaldo had never met Gambarini before, though he was aware of the Don’s reputation, one deserving of a robust confession if he were truly repentant.

The large, well-appointed bedroom had many people standing around, vying for the boss’s attention should he wish to suddenly name one of them as his successor. But Gambarini would have none of it yet, demanding the bedroom be cleared except for the priest, who would hear his confession privately.

As everyone ambled out of the room, giving each other dark glances, the door was closed as Rinaldo placed a violet stole around his neck, then reached into his black leather bag and withdrew a small bottle of holy water, a crucifix, and his Bible.

“Don Gambarini, my name is Father Rinaldo, from St. Mark’s. Do you wish to make a confession?”

“Where is my regular priest, Father Viani?”

“I’m afraid he is on sabbatical, signore, and will not return for some time. He entrusted his duties to me in his absence.”

Gambarini looked wide-eyed at the priest for a long while, trembling, gauging his predicament. Rinaldo found terror in the man’s eyes. Not an uncommon occurrence for one so close to death, but there was something more. Some heavy burden the man was struggling with. All the priest could do was wait for his penitent to make the first move.

“Father, I do wish to make a confession,” Gambarini began, “but it is not one you are going to like.”

“I make no judgments at all, signore. I am but the Lord’s servant in this matter. He alone passes judgment. But that depends on how you wish to leave this life, carrying with you the dark burden of your transgressions, or absolved of sin in His light.” Rinaldo gestured upward as he said this.

Gambarini paused, glanced around the room, then looked deep into the priest’s eyes. “Before we begin, Father, I must ask of you an important favor, for my sins are so great, my penance must include some action on your part—but only after I am dead.

“What I am about to tell you involves a serious crime against the Vatican itself, an offense which has been ongoing for centuries, and still takes place to this very day. I fear I will not have God’s full absolution unless this matter is revealed once and for all. And you must be the one to tell it to others, so that it will stop. Is that agreeable?”

Such an unusual request completely mystified Rinaldo. Never had he been asked to play a part in a confessor’s penance. And to do so, he would have to break the sacred seal of the confessional; he was uncertain if having permission to do so by the penitent absolved him of that restraint. He would have to speak with someone about that later.

He walked across the room and picked up a chair. Placing it next to Gambarini’s bed, he took a seat. He paused a moment to consider the situation.

“Let me hear your confession, my son. If it is within my power, I will do my part as you ask.”

***

Excerpt from The Vivaldi Cipher by Gary McAvoy. Copyright 2021 by Gary McAvoy. Reproduced with permission from Gary McAvoy. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER ONE

The blot of ink stuck to her finger, tacky like drying blood. Leona scrubbed at it with her handkerchief as the clock chimed two hours after midnight. She capped the inkwell, and while the ink dried on her most recent entry, she organized the copies with ribbons. Blue for Daphne and red for Ruth. With shaking hands, she slipped the copies into stiff cardboard folios and tied them closed. Sighing, she set them on the desk in front of her.

The flames in the hearth beckoned. This wasn’t the first night she’d yearned for obliteration. It wouldn’t come if she gave in to the urge to throw her labor into the fire. Only paper and ink would vanish, leaving the memories behind.

Pen and ink or back to the laudanum.

A grim thought, the grimmest of all.

The words had clawed their way out tonight. She’d begun the memoir of her time as a Union soldier months ago with the hope her drowning spirits would revive once the words dropped to the page. Yet the foreboding crept through her and tightened around her throat as the little study filled with familiar shadows. This old terror had become a second skin, like the tattered and dirty uniform she’d once worn.

Over the monotonous chatter of the rain, the clock ticked away the seconds until her husband came home. Leona moved to the window, pushed aside the heavy velvet curtains, and looked out at night-shrouded Cranberry Street. A lamp glowed in a window across the street. Homesickness for Boston, for life before the war, for herself before the war, settled on her. The wind threw a heavy splash of rain against the window, and she jumped back, letting go of the curtain.

Pacing the study, her restless thoughts rushed on without fatigue. To keep the memories inside only fed the persistent mental return to the battlefield, and the outpouring of words somewhat tamed her tormented soul. She stopped and touched the folio. Work would save her: work, family, friendship, and love. Maybe she’d write a story about two clocks. A natural clock which kept good time and a mad clock that twisted time out of true.

The street door below opened and closed. At last Gil, home safe. She couldn’t even bring herself to scold him for being so late. Leona listened for his footsteps as she crossed the room to tuck the folios into her desk drawer and locked it. She closed the gaslight apertures in the study and turned up the flame on the wall sconces in the drafty hallway so he could find his way. In the bedroom, she shed her dressing gown, stepped out of her slippers, and kicked them under the bed. Gil made his clumsy climb up the stairs. When he stumbled into the room, she pulled the covers back. He fell into bed fully clothed beside her, mumbling and fretful, the sharp ripe scent of whiskey lacing his breath.

She laid her hand on his shoulder. Beneath the cloth of his shirt, his skin was cold and damp. “Rest now, go to sleep,” she whispered.

***

At first light, Leona had dressed in a blue and cream day gown and made her way downstairs for breakfast. The creeping dread of the night before had waned. She rubbed her gritty eyes and yawned again. Mrs. McCarthy poured coffee from the silver pot, the familiar, civilized table a welcome sight. The scent of bacon made her stomach growl.

“Are you well, m’um?”

Leona glanced into the broad face of their cook and housekeeper, a sturdy and mature woman with a comforting Irish burr. She wore her fading blonde hair in a crown around her head.

“I didn’t sleep much.” Leona yawned again behind her fingers.

Gil’s heavy tread on the stairs made them both jump, and Mrs. McCarthy squeaked.

“I’ll bring more breakfast in a jiffy.” She fled through the side door to the kitchen just as Gil ducked through the hall entrance.

Leona rose and smiled at her husband. He’d made a great effort to come down early after returning so late. She accepted his peck on the cheek, poured him coffee and set it between them, wifely mask in place. He glared with bloodshot eyes at the letter in his hand, and her stomach clenched.

“It’s not all bad news, Gil.” She’d read the contents of the letter before leaving it on his desk in his study, as Grandfather had addressed it to both.

He raised his hazel eyes to her. “You recall Henry has absconded with all our funds?” he asked in a sarcastic tone, squinting at the letter, then back at her.

She no longer knew what to say about Gil’s former business partner, Henry Caldwell-Jones. The police were still looking for him. It put the devil in Gil’s eyes to speak of it, so she tried to let it be, not wanting to distress him even more.

“Of course, I remember, Gil. I—”

“And now your grandfather won’t give me a second loan. I’ll have to go back to the bank and ask them again.”

“He only wants to speak with you face to face about our situation,” she said, in her grandfather’s defense. “He’ll help us, Gil. He did offer to speak at the lyceum on his return from Ohio, to help raise funds. It isn’t as if—” Or was it? “We won’t lose the house, will we?”

The muscles in his lean face twitched as Gil fought to hide his disappointment, and her heart broke a little more to witness it. “Your grandfather does not bring in the interest he once did.”

It was true Leona’s grandfather, poet, abolitionist, and Transcendentalist, didn’t bring in the money he used to at readings in New York and Brooklyn, but he didn’t suffer for it.

Gil raked his fingers through his thick, brown hair and opened his mouth. Mrs. McCarthy entered with his breakfast, apparently stopping what he meant to say next. He reached inside the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a small notebook and pencil. Laying them on the table, his frown deepened.

Once Mrs. McCarthy had bustled out again, Leona said, “I could write to Aunt Louisa.” Who was not truly an aunt, but a friend of her mother’s.

He opened the notebook and touched the tip of his tongue to the pencil. “We cannot afford to feed and house a man of Bronson Alcott’s caliber,” he replied with heaviness. He bent his head to the columns of numbers on the pages.

His confidence and spirits were usually high, and it hurt to see him laid so low. She did mean Louisa Alcott herself, not her father Bronson Alcott, as the speaker for the lyceum to draw a crowd. Her novel, Little Women, published two years before, had become hugely popular.

“I’ll sell the lyceum, that should help,” Gil murmured, eyes downcast.

Leona winced. It was where they’d met nearly a year before. At a loss again, she glanced down at her lapel watch—9 o’clock already. She stood and set cups and plates on the tray.

“Let Mrs. McCarthy do that.” His pencil went on calculating their precarious position.

“I don’t mind. I’m off to see Daphne this morning. I won’t be home until the late afternoon.” Taking a deep breath, she dared to ask, not expecting an answer. “How much do we owe?” She blew out her held breath, apprehension biting at her. “Why won’t you tell me how much Henry has stolen?”

“He’s made me a laughingstock.” His handsome lips formed a tight smile, but he didn’t look at her. “Don’t you worry, Leona, leave it to me. This will all be over by Christmas.”

***

On the street, she began to walk, then turned to observe the window where Gil labored, smoke curling from the chimney. The image stayed with her as she made her way to the newsstand around the corner and waited patiently for her turn to buy a paper. The sunny day, though cold, had driven people outdoors, well wrapped in fur-collared coats and wool scarves. Woodsmoke and the sharp tang of the river mingling with the scent of baking bread drifted on the breeze. She chewed on the frustration that he wouldn’t share their financial details with her. It made her more fearful not to know. Though she kept the memoir and chapter stories a secret from him, this was hardly the same.

Passing the newsstand, an article about the new bridge caught her eye so she bought the latest Brooklyn Eagle. The previous summer, the four of them, Henry, his wife Helen, herself, and Gil, had stood at the end of Noble Street to watch the construction of the giant caissons in the naval yard. Though approval of the bridge was a long-foregone conclusion, the article was typical of the Eagle’s awful anti-consolidation fear mongering. The article repeated the claim linking the boroughs would only bring the dregs of Manhattan’s Lower East Side into Brooklyn’s pure white Heights. The wrongness of such an attitude churned her stomach.

Leona folded the paper and tucked it under her arm with the folio, sighing. Who would save the poor of this world from the hatred of the rich? Her spirits drooped lower.

She breathed deep the November air on familiar, tree-lined Remsen Street, where she’d lived for two years before marrying Gil in August. The red door of the brownstone opened, welcoming her in. Timothy, the butler, took her hat and coat. Before he disappeared with them, his eyes met hers with a familiar blue twinkle.

“I’ll tell her you’re here,” he said.

“Thank you.” She inhaled the sweet smell of hothouse roses set in vases along the long hallway and waited for word of her arrival to reach Daphne and her nurse Audrey.

Audrey approached from the depths of the house. Her eyes, though hooded, were a pure delphinium blue, blonde hair pinned tight to her head. She wore a plain uniform of dark gray with long cuffed sleeves and a white apron.

“Mrs. Van Wyn is in the Lavender Room.” With a curt nod, she turned away.

When they first met, Leona and Audrey had often shared tea and conversation, but of late Leona felt nothing but a wall of smothered animosity between them. They hadn’t argued, as such, though she had an idea where the strained relations came from.

“Is she well?” Leona asked.

For a moment, she didn’t think Audrey would answer, but the woman turned toward her again. “She passed a quiet night. The laudanum helps.”

Leona frowned. Audrey flicked a dismissive hand and went on her way.

The introduction of laudanum in Daphne’s life began not long after Leona moved to Cranberry Street with Gil that summer. The spas and cures Daphne’s grandson Benedict and his wife arranged didn’t seem to help anymore. The family hired Audrey, who administered the laudanum, a common enough panacea. Laudanum’s presence always disturbed Leona, and she had protested to the family, but no one listened. Audrey had become cold after this discussion. Leona believed some of Daphne’s pain came from her daily battle with grief. Leona often feared her own grief and the overuse of laudanum, prescribed by a respected doctor in Boston, had killed the child from her previous marriage to Jack Davenport. Poor dead Jack.

***

Excerpt from The Last Fatal Hour by Jan Matthews. Copyright 2026 by Jan Matthews. Reproduced with permission from Jan Matthews. All rights reserved.

At the western edge of Cape Cod, in the grandest bedroom in the sprawling residence known as Gray Gables, Frances Cleveland couldn’t stifle the rising sound of her own screams. Between pains, she rested. The late morning breeze drifted across the lawn from Buzzards Bay, fluttering the lace curtain and cooling the sweat on her forehead.

Even at this moment, Frances felt grateful that Grover chose to spend summers away from Washington’s heat, away from the prying public. Here, in this secluded haven, she needn’t fear strangers hovering near the windows of the Executive Mansion for a glimpse of their president—or, more likely, of his wife and daughters. She could concentrate her fears on her pains and pray for the safe birth of her third child, in the same way she had for her first and again for her second. Frances expected from experience that her suffering would soon recede, replaced by the joy of motherhood. She did not know that before the day was over, her bodily misery would end, yielding not to joy but to overwhelming terror.

The previous February, after sensing a flutter beneath her gown while greeting a crowd of visitors at a reception, Frances guessed the baby would be her third girl. Practiced at keeping confidences, she never mentioned her prediction to her preoccupied husband. When she gave birth to another girl, the blathering journalists would have their say. They would try out their jokes about the president’s little harem. Most days, Frances ignored the journalists. Most days, she trusted Grover to love each of his babies.

The image of a trio of girls was far from Frances’s mind now, as she suffered in bed. She cried out, too loudly. Dr. Bryant reminded her that she’d survived labor pains before. “Don’t you dare say that again,” she said, in a shrill tone that surprised her.

At last, Frances heard the newborn’s cry, faint but lovely. Dr. Bryant chuckled while he clamped and cut the cord. “Mrs. Cleveland, should I bring the president upstairs to see his new daughter? He’s pacing on the front porch. Once he sees this one—she’s beautiful—he won’t regret it’s not a son.”

“Yes,” Frances said, with the strongest voice she could muster. A girl, as she’d guessed. For an instant, with the last of her contractions, she’d ignored her prediction and hoped for a boy. Now, she didn’t linger on that momentary weakness of character. She let a surge of pride swell over her, above the exhaustion. She’d done it. Again.

Frances turned to the local midwife hired to assist. “Tell the steward, his name is Sinclair, to get Ruth and Esther. I want my daughters to see their new sister.”

Frances raised herself a few inches, enough to see the midwife slip into the hall. The woman returned and gave Frances a nod. The girls would come shortly. Frances sank back and watched the midwife wipe down the infant and swaddle her. She did look beautiful. “Here,” Frances said, crooking her arm to make room for Marion, the name Grover chose that would serve for a girl or a boy. The same name as a town across Buzzards Bay, where many of their friends lived. Frances appreciated Grover’s decision to buy an estate on the outskirts of a different but nearby town, Bourne. The family could escape Washington’s heat and busybodies.

And escape the threats.

Hours earlier, Frances gave thanks for the breeze blowing through the open window, reminding her that Gray Gables was perfectly located on a point overlooking the Bay’s east side. But now she blocked the sound of wind and waves. straining to make sense of other sounds, to hear what Grover would say about a third daughter. The doctor scurried downstairs. The midwife remained stationed over the bed, tending to Frances and crooning softly to the baby. Frances ignored the woman, mindful only of the voices wafting in through the window. First, low tones as the doctor talked to Grover. They were friends. Dr. Bryant saved Grover’s life two summers ago, removing the cancer eating away at his palate. Now, Frances imagined the doctor patting her thickset husband on his shoulder and shaking his hand. She hoped Grover would offer the doctor a contented smile. Seconds later, Grover clomped upstairs. The doctor followed behind, with lighter steps.

“So happy, Frankie.” Her husband used one of her nicknames. After their wedding, she asked Grover to call her by her more dignified name, Frances. He still used Frankie or Frank in private moments. She let him—the nicknames added tenderness to his gruff voice. “The doctor tells me you’re fine. You managed without chloroform this time, too. And the baby’s healthy. Marion, right? Three girls. They will enjoy each other’s company.”

He said the right thing. She didn’t need to feel anxious about another girl. He was a good man, kind to her, whatever others thought. He wouldn’t hold the baby, rarely did. But he wiped his chubby hand on a cloth, then touched Marion’s forehead. He stood there for a few minutes, cherishing their third child. For him, it was a fourth, but no matter. His eyes shifted to gaze at her. He wouldn’t see the tall, slender belle he married nine years ago, the one the reporters called lovely. He’d see a tired, sweat-drenched woman who looked every day of her thirty years.

“Ruth and Esther?” Frances asked again, eyeing the midwife. “Did you send Sinclair for them?”

“Yes, ma’am. The steward went a minute ago.” The midwife spoke quietly, carefully. She’d feel nervous in the presence of the president.

Still almost flat in bed, Frances clutched Marion, admiring the infant. Perfect features. Ten fingers and ten toes. Another blessing from God.

A familiar sound at the door. Sinclair knocked softly. His usual pattern—soft, loud, soft—keeping to the household code. Another sound, when the midwife opened the door. Next, Frances would hear four little feet rushing toward the newest baby.

No feet. Only hushed words.

“Sinclair found Annie,” the midwife said. “She’s your older daughter’s nursemaid, right? He tells me she needs another minute to bring Ruth and to tell your younger daughter’s nursemaid to bring Esther.” The midwife stood far from Frances’s bed, speaking almost in a whisper.

Grover didn’t look concerned. His rough mustache skimmed Frances’s cheek as he kissed her lightly on her damp forehead. She was too tired to return the kiss. She heard him drop into the nearby rocking chair.

“Joseph,” he said, addressing the doctor, “you’re certain Frankie is fine? No complications?”

“Just fine, Grover. Ready for the next one before long.”

Four years earlier, when Ruth was born, Dr. Joseph Bryant told Frances how to manage her family. “Breastfeed for six months.” He looked straight at her, with no awkwardness. “You’ll not get in the family way, and the baby will stay healthy. After six months, well, you and Grover can proceed to another.” And so they had. Esther after Ruth. Marion after Esther. A daughter every two years.

Frances closed her eyes, relying on her ears. Dr. Bryant thanked the midwife for her assistance. The woman tidied up, gathering soiled sheets and opening a chest, hunting for fresh linens. The room went silent, except for the soft, repetitious squeak of the rocking chair. Grover leaned up, then back, up then back. Frances sensed herself drifting off.

Another soft knock, barely a sound, followed by a pause, and two more soft knocks. Not Sinclair. One of the nursemaids. Annie? The midwife opened the door. “Ma’am.” Annie’s voice came out as a croak. “I can’t find Ruth.”

***

Excerpt from FIRST DAUGHTER by Marlie Parker Wasserman. Copyright 2026 by Marlie Parker Wasserman. Reproduced with permission from Marlie Parker Wasserman. All rights reserved.

Introduction

I’ve always been a fan of Agatha Christie, but not an obsessive one. I didn’t read and reread the novels. I didn’t go looking for obscure short stories. I didn’t read (and still haven’t) her Mary Westmacott novels. I treated her like most people did: She wrote good mysteries, and if they were handy, I read them.

Then Bill began the Complete, Annotated project by publishing Dorothy L. Sayers’ Whose Body?, followed by Agatha’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Over the years, as he annotated the next five of Agatha’s early novels, I read them carefully for possible footnotes. As I did, I paid more attention to her writing, her deft plotting, her sly sense of humor, and her ability to describe a character with a few sentences.

As I became more familiar with her novels, I realized that she’s underrated, probably because she was categorized as a genre writer. Some even consider her works cozies. Clearly, they never read Appointment with Death (1938), And Then There Were None (1939), or Endless Night (1967). I suspect that her Mary Westmacotts — which are described as romances — are anything but.

The publishing world applies labels to make it easier for bookshops to shelve their books in the store, not because they’re accurate.

In July 2020, as the world began opening up from the Covid-19 shutdowns, I was at the library, looking for a DVD to borrow. I spotted Crooked House (2017). I liked the novel, so I thought, “Why not?”

Crooked House was the second Agatha Christie film adaptation I had seen. Sir Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express (2017) was the first.

We needed fodder for the website (peschelpress.com) and I’d already been reviewing books, so I wrote a review of Crooked House. This reminded me that Bill was working on an annotated edition of The Secret of Chimneys. Was there a movie version? A review for the book would be nice. There was. It was an episode in a box set from ITV’s Marple.

Oookaaaay.

Having become overly familiar with Chimneys, I knew Agatha wrote it years before Miss Marple was a twinkle in her eye. But we watched it anyway. It was terrible. Bill wrote his review for The Complete, Annotated Secret of Chimneys, and I wrote mine for the website.

Since the library’s Marple DVD set included three more episodes, we watched them and I reviewed them for the website.

That’s when Bill said the fateful words that brought us here: “Let’s watch more Agatha films. You write the reviews. I’ll post them on the website, and we’ll publish them as a book.”

So here we are nearly three years later. We had no idea how big the Agatha project would become or how many films have been made for cinema and TV. Bill and I have watched more than 200 adaptations. This includes all the English-language ones we could find beginning with Adventures, Inc. (a 1929 silent movie), and many of the foreign versions too. For those, we were limited by availability and whether or not they had English subtitles. It’s criminal neglect that some of the finest Agatha Christie film adaptations in the world are from Japan, yet they’re unavailable in the West.

To my knowledge, we are the only people who’ve watched all the films. I’m definitely the only person who’s written and posted reviews for all those forgotten TV shows and kinescopes.

Along the way, I became much, much more familiar with Agatha’s writing as I had to read the novels and short stories to compare them to the films. She was cutting edge from the beginning. She invented what we call The Poirot, the practice of bringing together the suspects, explaining the clues, and fingering the criminal. It was a trope born of necessity, when her first attempt — Poirot testifying at the trial — didn’t fly with her publisher.

She began experimenting with narrative structure in 1924 with The Man in the Brown Suit. That novel has two narrators, one of them unreliable. Brown Suit is also a romantic thriller disguised as a mystery. Read the passage where Anne Beddingfeld administers to a mysterious, half-naked, sexy stranger’s wounds. This scene could be ripped from any romance novel of today (the sweet kind, not the spicy which would include far more detail). As a side note, the 1989 TV movie is very true to the text despite being turned into a contemporary.

Agatha was an innovative writer throughout her career. Her The Seven Dials Mystery (1929) is a mash-up of P. G. Wodehouse and John Buchan thrillers. Partners in Crime (1929) is a loose cycle of 16 short stories starring Tommy and Tuppence. Each short story is also a parody of a famous mystery writer, including herself! And unlike Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, Tommy and Tuppence aged in real time, from the young, eager lovers in The Secret Adversary (1922) to retired grandparents in Postern of Fate (1973).

And what’s And Then There Were None (1939), in which 10 characters are dispatched in an entertaining manner for their sins, but a PG-rated slasher flick? As a sign of its influence, the basic plot has been lifted, the serial numbers filed off, and rewritten in dozens more novels and movies. The A.B.C. Murders (1936) is a prototypical serial killer novel.

Agatha’s innovations could fill a book and go a long way to explaining why she’s still read today.

The other reason is more subtle.

Whatever you can say about the quality of the adaptations (like The Secret of Chimneys, bleah), they keep Agatha in the public eye. Never underestimate the importance of TV shows and movies on an author’s reputation. For each person who reads, 100 people go to the movies, and a 1,000 people watch TV. Every time an Agatha Christie film is shown, people who’ve never heard of her learn she exists. Some of them search out her books and discover how good her writing is.

When a writer dies, they can vanish under the constant tsunami of books being written and published daily. Dorothy L. Sayers is a prime example. Sayers wrote at the same time as Agatha. She’s highly regarded and her books are great. But her estate, unlike Agatha’s, shows no interest in licensing her stories and novels for TV or movies. Say the phrase: “Murder at Downton Abbey,” then ask why her literary estate isn’t capitalizing on Lord Peter Wimsey, detective in the peerage and a duke’s brother.

The Agatha Christie estate does not want her writing to suffer that fate, so they license her short stories and novels. Some adaptations are excellent; some are dreadful. For a few, the only commonality between novel and film is the name. Most range in between but all have something to offer, even if it’s only great period clothes, quality acting, or English Country House Porn. Linenfold paneling! Crenelated ceilings! Parquet floors as elaborate as the finest Persian carpet!

Excuse me while I stop and fan myself.

Watching 200+ Agatha adaptations also taught me plenty about filmmaking, pacing, and soundtracks. I can now, sometimes, recognize an actor from another adaptation. I’ve enjoyed seeing how one novel can be interpreted multiple ways, resulting in wildly different films. The Pale Horse (1961) is a good example. The three films (including Miss Marple in one!) are recognizably the same story, yet they’ve nothing to do with each other. The emphasis is different, the characters different, the tone is different.

I’ve watched 13 different Poirots (including an anime version). Seven different Marples (including an anime version). Multiple Tommy and Tuppences. Each actor or actress brings something new to the character.

The foreign films demonstrate how universal she is. She wrote about dysfunctional families, mapped the class divide, noticed the lengths we go to for status and security, and found reasons for murder ranging from money to passion to safety.

Ironically, foreign filmmakers respect Agatha more than she is at home. Appointment with Death (1938) has been filmed three times, but the Japanese version is the only one that captures the novel’s cruelty and horror. The two English language versions fail, one moderately and one spectacularly. Of the four versions of The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side (1962), only the Japanese version gives a voice to Margo Bence, one of Agatha’s most abused secondary characters. The other three versions ignore her because to face Margo Bence’s pain would mean admitting that the film business cares nothing for children unless they can be sold to make money.

We did not watch every single foreign TV episode even when they were readily available. There just wasn’t enough time. The best we could do was see enough to convey the flavor of a given series. If you want to see them, enjoy yourself! They provide very different views of Agatha and can be rewarding.

The novel that’s been adapted the most is And Then There Were None (1939). We saw ten versions, ranging from a blurry kinescope to slick studio productions with an all-star cast, so it merits its own chapter. Some versions hew to the stage play with its radically rewritten ending. Others stick to the novel, nihilism intact. Some combine the stage play and the novel, so Vera Claythorne learns who the puppet master was, begs for her life, and receives rough justice.

One final warning before you go: spoilers abound, so beware! Unlike Agatha, I don’t play fair with my reviews and hide whodunnit. Where I play fair is in telling you what I thought of them. I liked films that critics panned, and I disliked films others loved. I say why. I go down sidetracks. I enjoyed myself and I hope you will too.

So won’t you join me for an Agatha Christie Movie Marathon? You’ve got hundreds of hours of viewing pleasure ahead of you. Just remember to never accept a cup of tea you didn’t make, or take trips to lonely islands (or châteaus, or country houses) with strangers.

How to use this book

The films are organized by the starring detective. Miss Marple comes first, followed by Poirot, and Tommy and Tuppence. Next, a chapter is devoted exclusively to And Then There Were None, followed by the rest of the adaptations, and the final chapter is movies in which Agatha herself is the star.

Each chapter opens with a photo gallery showing the actors and actresses who played her detectives and characters.

There’s also an index, which is more important than it appears.

Seems logical, yes? Except that some adaptations removed Agatha’s chosen detective, turning the novel into a police procedural. When that happens, the movie is not included in the detective’s chapter. It’s included in “The Rest of the Christies”. Many of the foreign adaptations fall into this category.

Other adaptations (cough, ITV’s Marple, cough) insert a detective who didn’t exist in the novel. That’s why many standalone novels appear in the Miss Marple chapter. She’s now the star of The Sittaford Mystery, Murder Is Easy, The Pale Horse, and others. She also appears in a Tommy and Tuppence novel, By the Pricking of My Thumbs. Similarly, Margaret Rutherford snatched two Poirot novels and made them her own, so they appear in the Miss Marple chapter.

The chapters dedicated to And Then There Were None and the movies not part of a detective series are self- evident. “Agatha the Star,” however, deserves an explanation. In addition to her stories, Agatha’s life has become fodder for Hollywood. This includes the dreadful Vanessa Redgrave/Dustin Hoffman biopic Agatha (1979), a documentary that quotes from her and her work, a Doctor Who episode, and three movies that show Agatha’s exciting life investigating mysteries in a parallel universe. It focuses on Agatha, not her writing. Any relationship to Agatha’s real life should be considered coincidental. Even the documentary in this chapter is not entirely reliable.

Within each chapter, the films are organized chronologically. As you move forward in time, you’ll see changes in how a character was depicted and movie-making styles. Adventures, Inc. (1929) sets the stage. It’s the earliest Agatha film and the scriptwriter, Jane Bess, played fast and loose with the text. She led the way for hack screenwriters everywhere to rewrite Agatha’s prose.

Each review gets two pages. We chose a banner image and six photos of important cast members. I rate films by fidelity to text (or life in “Agatha the Star,” and either the play or the novel in And Then There Were None) and by the quality of the movie overall. The two ratings are separate, but they complement each other and give you a clearer understanding of what to expect.

The cast lists place detectives and police at the top. Everyone else follows in rough order of importance. We group families together to make it easier to work out relationships. Our cast lists are not comprehensive but the main characters are there.

Also note that for those foreign films which don’t name their characters from the novel, we provide that information. This was omitted when they rewrote them so much (such as Unknown (1965), the Indian version of And Then There Were None) that it would not be helpful.

At the end of the list come the film locations, or (in a couple episodes) a song list. Internet Movie Database and Agatha Christie Wiki provided most of the locations, but Bill added to that from other sources (see the bibliography). Knowing the film locations means you, dear reader, can visit the same castle as Poirot or Miss Marple.

Subtitles matter to me. We always looked for versions with subtitles as so many actors mumble or the sound quality is bad. If I can’t understand the dialog, I miss important points. Not every DVD was released with subtitles.

Fortunately, some of the older films like the Joan Hickson Miss Marples are being cleaned up for streaming. They get subtitles. But they aren’t being released as new DVDs so, no subtitles. If you can watch a streamed version, no problem. If you must use your TV and DVD player, you’re out of luck.

We had to have subtitles for the foreign films. We couldn’t see some films we wanted to (we especially regret passing up the Japanese Murder on the Orient Express) because they either weren’t available with subtitles or they weren’t available at all.

The index will help you find a specific film. This isn’t just because some novels got Miss Marple inserted, putting them into the Miss Marple chapter. Agatha’s novels were often released under different names. For example, the novel Lord Edgware Dies (1933) was released in the U.S. as Thirteen At Dinner. It’s been filmed three times, twice as Lord Edgware Dies and once as Thirteen At Dinner. But they’re all based on the same novel and the index connects them.

I list all the names, with a note as to which film it applies to. Or, as with Margaret Rutherford, the film’s name doesn’t correspond to any edition of the novel but I tell you what to look for.

The bibliography provides further reading and shows where some of my information came from.

Enjoy the book. We enjoyed watching the movies, podcasting about many of them, and writing the reviews. We want it to be used, encouraging you to watch Agatha Christie on the screen, always different but always her.

How the movies are rated

Each movie is given two ratings. Fidelity of text is exactly what it sounds. How close is the film to the original text? Sometimes, only the names match. Other films are so faithful, they’re lifeless.

Quality of movie is about the movie itself. Did everything together work as a film? Often, a very good movie isn’t faithful to the text at all (see Miss Marple in Ordeal By Innocence (2007)). If something jars about the movie, I’ll indicate it here.

The rating icons demonstrate Agatha’s many, many ways of killing. Blunt objects, poisoned cocktails, garrotes, knives, guns, stranglers, being pushed down a flight of stairs. They usually reflect the first murder in the film.

A few films, such as And Then There Were None, get five different symbols to reflect all the ways those nasty people got iced.

How to find the movies

We watched the vast majority of the films on DVD on our TV set, the one our neighbors were throwing away. You’re correct that we count our pennies.

That’s why we use our public library. If yours is like ours, it contains a surprisingly large collection of Agatha Christie films. All you have to do is get a library card to borrow them.

You may, like us, have access to more than one library. It’s worth learning what’s available in your area. We belong to our local library (the Hershey Public Library) and to our county library (the much larger Dauphin County Public Library). They often carry different titles so I always check both before moving on to the next step.

Your library is bigger than your municipality, your county, or even your state. Ask for the interlibrary loan librarian. For us, it’s Denise Philips. Denise got us all kinds of DVDs from libraries across the country. This service is usually free, as libraries are tax-supported. Ask and you may be very pleased. The interlibrary loan may take a few weeks for the requested movie to arrive, but it nearly always will.

If Denise could not get us a title, Bill would search eBay and Amazon. We bought a universal DVD player so we could play DVDs from Europe.

There were obscure kinescopes that were on YouTube, so we watched them on the computer.

There are streaming services, including Amazon which gave us access to Britbox. Dailymotion let us watch the Japanese films.

We don’t recommend skeevy pirate sites. They’re illegal, don’t pay royalties to the creators, and whatever you get will be loaded with viruses and malware and the film may be incomplete or damaged.

*** A review ***

The Sittaford Mystery (2006)

Epic expansion of Trevelyan’s life
leaves little room for a coherent
mystery for Miss Marple to sort out

Fidelity to text: 1 pharaoh’s curse

The novel was eviscerated. The murder, séance, escaped prisoner, and a few names remain. Everything else, including the murderer, were altered beyond recognition. Miss Marple resented being shoved in; she stayed defiantly offstage for long stretches.

Quality of movie: 1½ pharaoh’s curses

The scriptwriter shoved ten pounds of plot into a five-pound running length and the result is incoherence with snow.

The Review

Queue up Sir Mix-a-Lot and “Baby Got Back” and recite along with me:

Oh. My. God.
Look at that plot!

You’ll have to sit through this episode twice (at least) to understand what’s going on. This film is 93 minutes long, not long enough for all the disparate plot threads to be woven in a cohesive fashion. The film needed a minimum of another twenty minutes running time to do it justice.

But since ITV didn’t do that, you, dear viewer, will be left asking what just happened? Rewind, dammit! That’s what we did. Repeatedly. Yet there were many moments when I still can’t tell you what was going on.

The trouble starts with forcing Miss Marple into a property that was never written for her. This can work: see ITV’s By the Pricking of My Thumbs, a Tommy and Tuppence novel.

Not here. In fact, Miss Marple disappeared for long stretches of the film, doing heaven only knows what in Sittaford House while sitting out the blizzard. Maybe she was questioning the staff (we only see one servant in the mansion but there must be more), knitting, and speed-reading Captain Trevelyan’s memoirs. She certainly wasn’t at the Three Crowns Inn, inspecting the body and questioning the guests, even though most of the action takes place there.

An entirely new plot is shoehorned in, vastly expanding Captain Trevelyan’s character and backstory. Suddenly, he’s a war hero (WWI), a suspected war profiteer (WWII), an Olympic skater in between (I think; the dialog was incomprehensible at many key points), a major candidate to be the next prime minister (Winston Churchill (!) has a scene with Captain Trevelyan), and he’s a noted archeologist having discovered a major tomb in Egypt back in 1927 that made his fortune! Compared with Capt. Trevelyan, Indiana Jones was a lazy amateur.

But all this rewriting was necessary to give Timothy Dalton scenery to chew to earn his paycheck. In the novel, Captain Trevelyan exists to be swiftly murdered. He doesn’t even get one line. In the movie — since he’s Timothy Dalton — when he’s not emoting in front of us, he’s the topic of conversation by the other characters.

Which I can understand. It’s Timothy Dalton, and my goodness does he look yummy. Some men age very well and he belongs to that lucky cohort. He’s also got to be expensive so the producers made sure to get their money’s worth. Pity they didn’t spend some of their money on a better script or more film stock.

But he didn’t age that well. I had a hard time believing that virginal, lovely, dewy, eighteen-year-old Violet Willets (Carey Mulligan) fell madly in love with a man old enough to be her grandfather. I know why he did, and it’s not just because Violet resembles the woman he callously abandoned twenty-five years prior in Egypt. Violet is delicious, naïve, and believes every word he says and what man doesn’t want that? As for Violet, she didn’t come across as a gold-digger, which is the usual reason sweet 18-year-olds marry men old enough to be their grandfather. Or maybe she was one and the tacked-on ending where Violet runs off to Argentina with Emily Trefusis proves it.

Violet certainly wasn’t broken up about her husband being murdered on their wedding night. If anything, she seemed relieved. She got it all. The Trevelyan name, the inheritance, two tickets to Buenos Aires, and she didn’t have to sacrifice her sweet toothsome body to some old man, even if he was Timothy Dalton.

The Egyptian subplot was of major importance yet it didn’t make any sense. There was the paranormal aspect too, with a ghostly maiden showing up in Captain Trevelyan’s visions. Was there a curse on the gold scorpion? Was he going crazy? We’re never told. The ghost follows a different movie’s script when it appears and vanishes.

This script also doesn’t tell us how an Egyptian servant can show up in isolated Sittaford in 1949 and get hired on, no questions asked. I understand that the servant problem was bad enough that the upper crust didn’t ask as many questions as they could. But here? Really?

We know Captain Trevelyan did potentially bad things in Egypt. Yet he wasn’t suspicious when this mysterious Egyptian showed up at his door? He’d been having weird dreams about his past. He’s got a burgeoning political career which means close scrutiny of his private life. He’s supposed to be a smart man.

Add in the even more incoherent subplot about the escaped prisoner from Dartmoor prison. None of that made sense; not the purchase of the inn a year prior to the events of the story, not the backstory of how the star-crossed lovers met, not how the prisoner escaped from Dartmoor prison and found his way across the moors to be reunited with his paramour and cousin and their eventual escape to freedom.

There’s also the American war profiteer who helped Captain Trevelyan make a fortune manufacturing substandard munitions that killed more American sailors than the enemy. The American war profiteer’s personal aide-de-camp and quack doctor made even less sense. Why did the war profiteer need him around, other than as a dogsbody? There was mumbled dialog that sounded like they were both in the mafia, but it was unclear.

We also meet the incompetent government clerk who’s looking into Captain Trevelyan’s background to ensure nothing questionable is revealed to the press, thus discrediting the party. He’s not doing a very good job if Captain Trevelyan was a known associate of American war profiteers and he doesn’t know.

Then there’s Charles Burnaby. In the novel, he’s boy-reporter Charles Enderby. The name change was the first step in his complete reworking of motives and backstory. Yet we get no foreshadowing of his dramatic personal life or of his connections to the Trevelyan family.

We get almost nothing of James Pearson’s connection to Captain Trevelyan either. We get even less of a reason for Emily Trefusis to be engaged to James Pearson, boy alcoholic, other than that old standby: He’ll inherit big when Captain Trevelyan dies. Maybe that’s why Emily runs off to Argentina with Violet. She gets the money and the girl and doesn’t have to marry the boy alcoholic.

I could rant on, but you get the picture: This movie was a mess, barely suitable for Timothy Dalton fans. ITV could have saved the cost of his salary and paid for a better script. Or, they could have capitalized on Timothy Dalton and added another twenty minutes of movie, explaining all the subplots and how they connected.

General Information

Based on: The Sittaford Mystery (U.S. title: The Murder at Hazelmoor; novel, 1931)

Run time: 1 hr., 40 min. Subtitles: No

Writer: Stephen Churchett

Director: Paul Unwin

Cast

Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple

Timothy Dalton as Clive Trevelyan
Mel Smith as John Enderby
Jeffery Kissoon as Ahmed Ghali
Laurence Fox as James Pearson
Zoe Telford as Emily Trefusis
James Murray as Charles Burnaby
Rita Tushingham as Miss Elizabeth Percehouse
Michael Brandon as Martin Zimmerman
Paul Kaye as Dr. Ambrose Burt
Patricia Hodge as Mrs. Evadne Willett
Carey Mulligan as Violet Willett
Matthew Kelly as Donald Garfield
James Wilby as Stanley Kirkwood
Robert Hardy as Winston Churchill

Film Locations

The Flower Pot Pub, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire (pub exterior)
Dorney Court, Dorney, Buckinghamshire (Sittaford House interiors)

***

Excerpt from Agatha Christie, She Watched by Teresa Peschel. Copyright 2023 by Teresa Peschel. Reproduced with permission from Teresa Peschel. All rights reserved.

From beginning of Chapter One…

Paradise isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.

Sure, Valerie Corbin knew she and her wife Kristen were supremely fortunate to now reside in the quaint, still-stuck-in-the-1970s town of Hilo on the magnificent Big Island of Hawai‘i—home to lush jungles, fiery volcanoes, black sand beaches, and coral reefs teeming with eye-popping tropical fish.

But at this moment, all she could focus on was the bull terrier-spaniel mix next door barking so loudly that it almost—though not quite—drowned out the whine of the pneumatic tools its owner was using on a jacked-up truck, the parts of which were currently scattered all across his driveway.

Letting loose a few choice words regarding both dog and man, Valerie slammed shut the window above the kitchen sink, then returned to the stove to poke at her potatoes simmering in a pot of water. At the sound of the back door opening, she looked up to see Kristen and her nephew, Sean, come inside from the lānai, Valerie and Kristen’s little white dog, Pua, trotting after them.

“We couldn’t take the racket anymore,” said Kristen, tossing her Outside magazine onto the counter. “Does he ever stop?”

“Who—Akoni or Larry?”

Kristen laughed. “Both, I guess. And yeah, I know the answer: rarely. Especially Akoni, with his constant yowling. Though I gotta say, it seems like Larry’s been working on his vehicles a hell of a lot more of late. And I don’t believe I’ve ever even seen that particular truck before. You think he’s started repairing other people’s vehicles, too?”

“Oh, God, I hope not. Though that would explain the increased frequency of the noise.” Valerie switched off the heat under her potatoes, then turned to Kristen. “I wonder if it’s legal to have a car repair business in this neighborhood. Maybe I should ask at tonight’s meeting if anyone knows.”

“Or maybe you could just talk to your neighbor about it,” put in Sean, who’d taken a seat at the kitchen table and was busy typing something into his phone.

Valerie and Kristen exchanged glances, after which Valerie replied, “Maybe later. But first we should figure out where we stand on the issue.”

Sean set down his phone with a shrug. “So what’s this thing you’re going to tonight, anyway?”

“It’s the monthly meeting for the neighborhood orchid society,” said Valerie, carrying the pot to the sink and dumping the steaming potatoes into a colander. “Shirley invited me—you know, the woman who lives at that house down the street with all those beautiful orchids in her tree ferns? I was admiring them the other day, and after we got talking, she invited me to come along tonight to see if I might be interested in joining. You wanna join me?”

Sean let loose his man bun, held in place by a wooden hair stick, and shook out his dirty-blond locks. “No can do; I’m working tonight at the hospital. It’s my first time in the ER, which should be interesting.”

Sean had come from Arkansas to do a three-month stint as a visiting nurse at the Hilo hospital and was now on his second week at the job—and at Valerie and Kristen’s house, where he’d be staying for the duration of his time on-island. “I didn’t know you were into orchids,” he said in a lazy drawl, pulling his hair back from his face and retying the bun.

“I wasn’t, not till we first got to Hilo. But they’re so amazing and, I dunno . . . other-worldly.”

Star Trek flowers, I call them,” said Kristen, and Valerie nodded.

“And they’re so easy to grow here, so I’m thinking it might be fun to try it myself. Plus, it’d be a great way to get to know some of the folks in the neighborhood a little better.”

“Like Larry?” asked Sean with a grin.

“Ha. I’m not so sure he’s really the orchid type . . .”

***

Excerpt from MURDER, LOCAL STYLE by Leslie Karst. Copyright 2026 by Leslie Karst. Reproduced with permission from Leslie Karst. All rights reserved.