When Nora Blackbird's parents skipped town and left her with a property tax bill for two million, shefound herself in dire need of a paycheck. So the former debutante finds work as the society page columnist for a Philly paper. She's happy to reclaim her place within the city's elite-until her first party assignment sends her stumbling ... upon the murdered body of the host.

Rushmore McKenzie is a former cop, current millionaire, and an occasional unlicensed P.I. who does favors for friends. Yet he has reservations when his girlfriend's daughter asks him to help her father Jason Truhler, the ex-husband of McKenzie's girlfriend, and a man in serious trouble. En route from St. Paul to a Canadian blues festival on Highway 61, he met a girl, blacked out, and awoke hours later in a strange motel, with the girl's murdered body...

"Miss Ophelia Flax is a Victorian actress who knows all about making quick changes and even quicker exits. But to solve a fairy-tale crime in the haunted Black Forest, she'll need more than a bit of charm. 1867: After being fired from her latest variety hall engagement, Ophelia acts her way into a lady's maid position for a crass American millionaire. But when her new job whisks her off to a foreboding castle straight out of a Grimm tale, she begins...