The Great Houses of Pill Hill
from SoHo Press
A literary take on the locked-room mystery, from a scintillating new voice in crime fiction
Hannah “Cookie” Cooke is an interior decorator with a sideline making miniature reproductions of crime scenes. She lands her dream job when New Preston’s wealthiest couple hires her to renovate their historic New England home. But things go spectacularly wrong when her client, Chuck, is murdered at the housewarming party.
The detective on the case is sure the key to the baffling murder is hiding in one of Cookie’s miniatures. Complicating matters further, Cookie’s mother, a retired archaeologist, knows more than she’s willing or able to admit about the house and its history—in particular, why there’s a hidden room decorated in 19th-century Egyptian kitsch, and what it might mean for the current owners.
This character-driven contemporary take on classic noir spins themes of possession, consumption, and gentrification into a twisty, one-of-a-kind mystery.
