The heroine, Robin Brilliant, owner of a house and estate called Great Fanne, is in love with a young squire who lives close by at Lesser Fanne. The two are admirably suited to one another and the neighborhood expects they should marry. A complication arises, however, in the shape of a pretty young woman of inferior position and scheming disposition who arrives from Paris with her mother, a boarding house keeper who has recently come into an unexpected fortune and is retiring to the English village in which she passed her youth. As her daughter maneuvers to win away Robin's lover's affections, Robin appears almost too proud to reach out to keep him and he may be too weak to stick by her without help.

A 2017 EDGAR® AWARD FINALIST! Amanda Baron died in a boating accident on the Ohio River in 1953. Or, did she? While it was generally accepted that she had died when a coal barge rammed the pleasure boat she was sharing with her lover, her body was never found. Travis Baron was an infant when his mother disappeared. After the accident and the subsequent publicity, Travis’s father scoured the house of all evidence that Amanda Baron had ever lived, and her name was never to be uttered around him. Now in high school, Travis yearns to know more about his mother. With the help of his best friend, Mitch Malone, Travis begins a search for the truth about the mother he never knew. The two boys find an unlikely ally: an alcoholic former detective who served time for falsifying evidence. Although his reputation is in tatters, the information the detective provides about the death of Amanda Baron is indisputable—and dangerous. Nearly two decades after her death, Travis and Mitch piece together a puzzle lost to the dark waters of the Ohio River. They know how Amanda Baron died, and why. Now what do they do with the information?