In payment for a gambling debt, Little Nell and her grandfather are evicted from their curiosity shop by the evil Daniel Quilp and wander about the country looking for a new home.

Heading to Hollywood when Wren Bixby, owner of Bix Pix Flix, purchases the rights to her story, private detective Jane Wheel becomes embroiled in a murder mystery when a screenwriting friend is accused of killing his old writing partner.

When two of the residents at a county college's single-parent dormitory die of poisoning, professor Maggie Summer finds a host of suspects, including a professor hired for political reasons and the college's reputation-driven president.

"England in 1932 is in the grip of the Great Depression. Stella Douglas, author of a much-loved but not very successful biography, is a bit depressed herself. When she's summoned to see her editor in London, she expects her writing career is over before it's even started. But much to her surprise, she is being commissioned to write a history of English food. There's just one problem: a lot of English food is actually quite terrible. So Stella travels...