[Janet's Planet Mystery 01] • To the Manor Dead

Janet Petrocelli, my gimlet-eyed sleuth, is a recovering therapist. She had a practice in New York City, but career burnout -- combined with the implosion of her marriage to the Asshole -- made her rethink her life.

A junque junkie, Janet buys a small building in a quirky Hudson River town. She opens a used-stuff shop downstairs and lives above. It doesn’t take her long to realize that the valley is filled with people who are every bit as fascinating, delightful, degenerate, sexy and dangerous as anyone she knew down in the city.

And while Janet may think she wants less to do with “that overrated, self-obsessed, narcissistic species – the human race”, in fact, her voracious curiosity and her passion for the lost, the wounded, and the underdog inevitably draw her into the heart of darkness.

In To the Manor Dead, Janet becomes entangled with one of the Valley’s aristocratic old families -- the Livingstons – who have gone to seed in pretty spectacular fashion. She is led into a web of drugs, depravity, greed and, of course, murder.