Kate Telman is a senior executive officer in The Business, a powerful and massively discreet transglobal organisation. Financially transparent, internally democratic and disavowing conventional familial inheritance, the character of The Business seems, even to Kate, to be vague to the point of invisibility. It possesses, allegedly, a book of Leonardo cartoons, several sets of Crown Jewels and wants to buy its own State in order to acquire a seat at the United Nations. Kate's job is to keep abreast of current technological developments and her global reach encompasses.
This is a collection of six interlinked stories about a family preparing for the parent's silver wedding anniversary and the skeletons this drags from the cupboard. Gradually, as the stories develop, it becomes obvious that the marriage is far from happy and the anniversary itself a sham.
One hundred teenage boys (picked at random from a large pool of applicants) are chosen to participate in an annual walking contest called "The Long Walk". Each walker must maintain a constant speed of no less than four miles an hour, or he receives a warning. Warnings are given for a variety of other offenses, including assaulting another walker or deviating from the walk's set course. Walkers may "lose" warnings by walking for one hour without being warned. If, however, a Walker with three warnings slows down again, or breaks any other rule, he is shot by the soldiers monitoring the event from halftracks.
In the small city of Strattenburg, there are many lawyers, and though he's only thirteen years old, Theo Boone thinks he's one of them. Theo knows every judge, policeman, court clerk - and a lot about the law. He dreams of being a great trial lawyer, of a life in the courtroom. But Theo finds himself in court much sooner than expected. Because he knows so much - maybe too much - he is suddenly dragged into the middle of a sensational murder trial. A cold-blooded killer is about to go free, and only Theo knows the truth.
It began with an advertisement in the paper requesting descendants of the late innkeeper to stay for a weekend at the inn. They arrived eager, a mixed assortment, but one of them got hideously murdered bringing the inn's stormy past to focus. Maud Silver was sent to investigate.
