She said yes to Morelli. She said yes to Ranger. Now Stephanie Plum has two fiancés and no idea what to do about it. But the way things are going, she might not live long enough to marry anyone.

While Stephanie stalls for time, she buries herself in her work as a bounty hunter, tracking down an unusually varied assortment of fugitives from justice. There’s Eugene Fleck, a seemingly sweet online influencer who might also be YouTube star Robin Hoodie, masked hero to the homeless, who hijacks delivery trucks and distributes their contents to the needy. She’s also on the trail of Bruno Jug, a wealthy and connected man in the wholesale produce business who is rumored to traffic young girls alongside lettuce and tomatoes. Most terrifying of all is Zoran—a laundromat manager by day and self-proclaimed vampire by night with a taste for the blood of pretty girls. When he shows up on Stephanie’s doorstep, it’s not for the meatloaf dinner.

With timely assists from her stalwart supporters Lula, Connie, and Grandma Mazur, Stephanie uses every trick in the book to reel in these men. But only she can decide what to do about the two men she actually loves. She can’t hold Ranger and Morelli at bay for long, and she’s keeping a secret from them that is the biggest bombshell of all. Now or never, she’s got to make the decision of a lifetime.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher is a gripping tale of a real-life murder that inspired the birth of modern detective fiction. In June 1860, three-year-old Saville Kent was tragically found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. This horrific crime shocked all of England and sparked a national obsession with detection. Ironically, it nearly destroyed the career of perhaps the greatest detective of the time, Inspector Jonathan Whicher.

At the time, detectives were a new invention; there were only eight in all of England, and they were rarely called out of London. Yet, this crime was so appalling that Scotland Yard dispatched its best man, Inspector Whicher, to investigate.

Whicher quickly suspected the unthinkable: someone within the family was responsible for young Saville Kent's murder. However, without sufficient evidence or a confession, his case remained circumstantial, and he returned to London a broken man. Though he would be vindicated five years later, the true legacy of Jonathan Whicher endures in fiction: the tough, quirky, knowing, and all-seeing detective archetype that has captivated readers for generations.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher is a provocative work of nonfiction that reads like a Victorian thriller. In it, Kate Summerscale crafts a brilliant, multilayered narrative that is as cleverly constructed as it is beautifully written.