When Anna St. James graduated college with a business degree, she never expected to find herself running a boarding house on a small island off the east coast. Now, settled into life as owner and landlady of the Moon River Boarding House on Frostfall Island, Anna couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Most of the time, Frostfall is a charming island with a busy fishing boat harbor and town that attracts summer tourists. But occasionally, quite occasionally, if that’s a phrase, there’s an unexpected murder. Without a dedicated police force, the locals look to Anna to solve crimes.

Most Sinful residents are unaware of Carter’s crisis and are going about their daily lives as they always have, including local prankster Gage Babin. Except this time, Gage’s attempt to elicit laughs leaves him on a slab in the medical examiner’s office. Everyone knows how unhealthy he was, but Fortune thinks there’s more to his death than a poorly timed prank that caused his bad heart to give out.

Recently widowed Agnes Lockwood is spending a few days on Tyneside in Northeast England, catching up with her past. When expensive jewelry is stolen at the hotel, Chief Inspector Alan Johnson gets on the case. After Alan recognizes Agnes as a friend from schooldays, they rekindle their friendship and Agnes bombards him with questions about the case. But after dinner one evening, they find a body lying on the roadside. Fearing for her safety, Alan warns Agnes to stay away from the case. But being an inquisitive woman, Agnes cannot resist getting involved...too involved.

After her ex-husband leaves her high and dry, former socialite Doreen Montgomery's chance at a new life comes in the form of her grandmother, Nan's, dilapidated old house in picturesque Kelowna...and the added job of caring for the animals Nan couldn’t take into assisted living with her: Thaddeus, the loquacious African gray parrot with a ripe vocabulary, and his buddy, Goliath, a monster-size cat with an equally monstrous attitude. It’s the new start Doreen and her beloved basset hound, Mugs, desperately need.

Seasoned obituary writer Eve Mallow has a new assignment: to tell the life story of famed musician Bernard Fitzpatrick. A chance to spend a few days in the sweet little village of Saxford St. Peter, walking the country lanes with her beloved dachshund, Gus, and meeting new people sounds like a dream. But it turns out that Bernard’s life was much less interesting than his death. On the day she arrives, news breaks that the charismatic cellist was the victim of a grisly murder. Could this quaint English village be hiding a dark secret?