When the call came it seemed like the answer to my prayers. My career as a voice actor had been over for months and me and my little girl Scarlet were living back at my mum’s place. I felt like a failure professionally—and with Scarlet having problems at school, as a parent as well. So, when I was asked to narrate a new book by disappeared novelist Philippa Roberts I jumped at the chance, even if it meant leaving Scarlet with my ex, Hugo, for a few weeks. Hugo, with his perfect new home and his perfect new girlfriend Saskia. But this isn’t a dream come true. It’s a nightmare.

Once a week, three women get together for book club in Kingsland, a private, gated community full of neighbors looking to do their business away from prying eyes. On the same night, their husbands meet up to play poker, where much more is being planned than anyone could guess.

Stacey and Felix are the glamorous owners of the stylish, modern Glass House, with its pool and floor-to-ceiling windows. Now they’re downsizing, but Stacey can’t sell to just anyone. She needs the right buyer, who will keep her secrets. Millie and Tom have always imagined living in the Glass House. Now it’s for sale. With property prices booming, if they can sell quickly, it could be theirs. But is the house and its charming owners all they seem? Harper and Kyle are moving up in the world.

April Clarke-Cliveden was the first person Hannah Jones met at Oxford. Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends—Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily—during their first term. By the end of the year, April was dead.

Early one morning on the shore of the Thames, DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene of a gruesome discovery. When Owusu sends the evidence for examination, he learns the bones are connected to a cold case that left three people dead on the kitchen floor in a Chelsea mansion thirty years ago. Rachel Rimmer has also received a shock—her husband, Michael, has been found dead in the cellar of his house in France. All signs point to an intruder, and the French police need her to come urgently to answer questions about Michael and his past that she very much doesn’t want to answer.