The Framed Women of Ardemore House: A Novel

Summary

A sharp, savvy mystery about an autistic editor who inherits a crumbling English estate, only to find herself at the center of a murder investigation when a family portrait vanishes and a dead body turns up.

Jo Jones has always had a little trouble fitting in. As a neurodivergent, hyperlexic book editor and divorced New Yorker transplanted into the English countryside, Jo doesn’t know what stands out more: her Americanisms or her autism. And that was before the body on the carpet.

After losing her job, her mother, and her marriage all in one year, Jo couldn’t be happier to take possession of a possibly haunted (and clearly unwanted) family estate in North Yorkshire. But when the moody town groundskeeper ends up on her rug with three bullets in his back, Jo finds herself in potential danger—and as a potential suspect. At the same time, a mystifying family portrait vanishes from a secret room in the manor, bearing a strange connection to both the dead body and Jo’s mysterious family history.

With the aid of a Welsh antiques dealer, the morose local detective, and the Irish innkeeper’s wife, Jo embarks on a mission to clear herself of blame and find the missing painting, unearthing a slew of secrets about the town—and herself—along the way. And she’ll have to do it all before the killer strikes again…