Rotten School has a new student. His name is Angel Goodeboy, and Bernie Bridges had better watch out, because Angel Goodeboy really is Good with a capital G! The girls love Angel. The teachers love him. The Rotten House guys love him. The Nyce House guys love him. Even Bernie’s dog, Gassy, loves him. Angel is MR. POPULAR.
It’s the school talent show, and this year Bernie Bridges wants to beat Nyce House. He wants a kid from his dorm, Rotten House, to win. The problem is, no one in Rotten House has any talent. At least that’s what Bernie thinks, until he walks past a closet and hears the most amazing guitar playing—it’s Chipmunk, the shyest kid in Rotten House. Bernie signs Chipmunk right up for the show…and then discovers that playing in front of an audience makes Chipmunk puke—a lot. His surefire winner can only perform in a closet.
What's Bernie Rhodenbarr doing in the country? He is a New York kind of guy, an urbane antiquarian bookseller who moonlights as a buttoned down burglar. Until an impossibly rare Raymond Chandler novel dedicated to Dashiell Hammett lures him and his buddy, Carolyn, from their own turf to the hills of Western Massachusetts. Before they knows it, they're smack in the middle of Agatha Christie country and you know what that means. A classic English country house. A guest list awash in eccentricity. And the snow keeps falling. And the bridge is out. And the phone lines are cut. And, one by one, somebody's killing off the guests. And....shhhh! There's a burglar in the library!
There is an old house in Devil's Cleave, a deep gorge that leads from the high moors down to the harbour village of Hollow Bay. The house is Crickley Hall - it is large, grim and somehow foreboding. It is rumoured to be haunted. It is thought to hold a secret. Despite some reservations, the Caleighs move in, searching for respite in this beautiful part of North Devon, seeking peace and hoping to come to terms with what's happened to them as a family. But all is not well witht he house. They hear unaccountable noises. A cellar door they shut every night is always open again in the morning. They see things that cannot be real.
Another case for retired governess turned private detective, Miss Silver. After the death of her guardian, Jenny Hill inherits Alington House. But the present owners, distant relations of Jenny, plan to cheat her out of her inheritance.
