Johnny Redfield gives a party and the guest of honor is his eccentric aunt, a lady given to sandals, loosely belted robes, and talk of astral planes and auras. Not until after she is murdered, does amateur sleuth Henry Gamadge learn that almost everyone present had a reason to want Josephine Malcom dead—and no one has an alibi.

Spinster Alice Dunbar disappeared shortly after her old and wealthy Aunt Woodworth died. But no one connects the events except Gamadge. Daughter of a comfortably well-off family, Alice's dreary life consisted of running household errands with the family chauffeur. What motive would she have to run away? She had no money, no vices, and no lover. Or did she? Once Gamadge discovers the true destination of Alice's frequent drives, he finds himself racing down a winding, dark road that leads straight to a very dead end.

The Clayborn clan has been waiting 25 years to divvy up Grandmama's fortune, locked up by her will and in a small room in the Clayborn mansion. Tomorrow The Room is to be opened, and the Clayborns can't wait to get their fingers on the old lady's reportedly priceless button collection. Harriet Clayborn, who doesn't quite trust her family, asks Henry Gammadge to witness the Opening of The Room, to make sure there's no funny business. Gammadge agrees, and it's a good thing this masterful sleuth is on hand: the Room has been hiding something grislier than buttons.

When a bride runs away from her husband, it could be just a lovers' quarrel. But when she runs straight to Henry Gamadge, you can be sure there's a crime involved. In fact, pretty Rena Austen was sure she had married a homicidal maniac. A wounded war hero, Gray Austen seemed the perfect lover when they first met. But his gloomy house, sour-faced servants, and sinister brother and sister soon turned Rena's dream married into a nightmare. Then came the day she took an old book from the sitting room shelf. Suddenly, inexplicably, this innocent act sent her husband into a murderous rage—and within hours, the mysterious book and an unidentified corpse made Rena's marriage the basis for Gamadge's most tantalizing case.

The Maples. A secluded estate along the Hudson River. Home of the powerful Coldfield clan. Where admission was by invitation and exit by permission. Where a respectable facade masked a sinister secret. Why did Glendon Coldfield suddenly commit suicide? Why was his widow held prisoner in an upstairs bedroom? What clues were contained in a carefully ordered crossword puzzle? The answers lay hidden in letters from the past -- letters whose message was Danger, Excitement, Adultery, Terror, and Hatred.

Henry Gamadge is asked to appraise a collection of a murdered poet and playwright's letters, but they are sold by the author's widow before he can view them. There is more at work than meets the eye, and soon a second murder is added to the mix...

Strange things were going on at Underhill, the Hutter family's country estate. One of the weekend guests blamed it on malevolent spirits, accidently unleashed by Florence Hutter Mason's fiddling with a Ouija board. Gamadge agreed the ominous messages typed into the manuscript copy of Florrie's novel were evil, but he knew they weren't put there by a spectral hand. And he feared that soemwhere between the formal gardens outside and the servants' quarters atop the stately mansion, murder was about to happen...because while ghosts don't kill, humans driven by passion, spite, or greed all too often do.

In the sticky summer of 1943, and with her husband out of town on war work, a secluded cottage in the Berkshires sounds just the ticket to the newly married Clara Gamadge. The resident ghost, a slender woman in a sunbonnet, merely adds to the local color, even with the news that the bonneted woman died just one year ago, in the cottage that Clara is now renting. It's all nothing more than a deliciously spooky game, until the woman's sister is strangled while Clara dozes in a chair by her bed. The only clue: Clara's panicked memory of a woman in a sunbonnet standing at the door. Happily, Henry Gamadge - that supremely civilized gentleman-sleuth - arrives in time to calm his wife and solve the mystery (though not without some stellar help from Clara!)

Vina Gregson needs help. Finally acquitted of the murder of her husband, who died from a probably-not-accidental overdose, she had money and the will to spend it. But the eyes of the world still see her as a murderer, acquitted or otherwise. And someone has started to do something about it. Threatening messages and four attempts at her life later, she calls in amateur investigator Henry Gamadge to find the person responsible. But while he has his theories, it is not long – actually, it does take a while to be honest – before someone lies dead. Can Gamadge find the murderer before their plans reach fruition?