Very Old Money

Two servants discover family skeletons behind the closed doors of a forbidding Manhattan mansion in this mystery by a three-time Edgar Award–winning author. In dire financial straits, young couple Mike and Amy Lloyd—a former cab driver and a New York prep-school teacher, respectively—have signed away their independence to become live-in servants for one of the city's wealthiest and most private families. At first, the Durie home, a cavernous Gilded Age palazzo off Fifth Avenue, is a maze of intimidation: sixteen other employees, eight Duries in residence, forbidden rooms, and an exact and unbreakable set of rules. For Amy, personal secretary to the aged and blind Miss Margaret, that includes never broaching the subject of her employer's "condition" or the tragic accident that caused it. On the other hand, Mike, an aspiring writer, is already taking notes for a Durie-inspired novel. A modern gothic, he's guessing—part Rebecca,...