First arson, then murder strike Emily Dickinson's hometown Although she spent her life withdrawn from the people of Amherst, Massachusetts, every man, woman, and English professor in this small university town claims ownership of poet Emily Dickinson. They give tours in her house, lay flowers on her grave, and now, as the hundredth anniversary of her death approaches, they organize festivals in her name. Dickinson scholar Owen Kraznik has just been...

Two hundred years after Thomas Jefferson's inauguration, a serial killer stalks Monticello Thomas Jefferson is in trouble. Two centuries after he became America's third President, the nation's historians have ganged up on him, intent on shattering the reputation of a man they once idolized. It's Fern Fisher's job to set the record straight. A hotshot young historian, she has been hired by the people at Monticello to repair Jefferson's tattered reputation....

Homer investigates the violent deaths of a beautiful stage manager's admirers Each year, the beautiful Sarah Bailey marks the winter solstice by organizing a pageant of drama and song for the citizens of Harvard University. Last year, the star of the show was Henry Shady, an Appalachian folk singer whose homespun charm won the eye of every young woman in Cambridge. On the eve of this year's Revels, the singer is struck down in the street by an SUV...

A hunt for a missing art lover engages Homer in a perplexing mystery Leonard Sheldrake knows little about Frieda except that he loves her. A Harvard professor and admirer of the bizarre engravings of M. C. Escher, Leonard is visiting a Cambridge exhibition of the artist's work when he meets Frieda and falls instantly in love. As they trade remarks about the artwork, he learns a few brief things about her. Though young, she is a widow, an orphan, and...

While trying to start a new life, Homer's niece uncovers a murder Life has not always been fair to Annie Swann. A bad marriage sullied her youth, but since her divorce she has made enough money illustrating children's books to add a wing to her house. The new addition's focal point will be a thirty-five-foot blank wall, where Annie plans an elaborate mural of the fairy tale characters who pay her bills. But as she paints, mysterious markings appear...

Homer and his wife fight to restore the besmirched legacy of a long-dead relative Homer and Mary Kelly have wandered through Harvard University's Memorial Hall dozens of times, but never have they lingered over the long list of alumni who died for the Union during the Civil War. One afternoon, the setting sun casts its light on the name of Seth Morgan, Mary's disgraced great-great-grandfather. She knows little of her ancestor's life, for family lore...

After a new neighbor begins cutting down all the trees in town, the Halls and their friends band together to protect the magical and mysterious tree that has sprouted overnight in their backyard.

A wave of death sweeps a small congregation, puzzling Homer Kelly The Baptists of Nashoba are healthy. So are the Quakers, Lutherans, and Methodists. Every religious sect in this small New England town is in ruddy good health, save for the congregation at the Old West Church, whose members are dying like flies. As a rash of heart failure claims victim after victim, what first seemed like tragic coincidence begins to look a lot like murder. And in...