MAUREEN JOHNSON’S first stand-alone mystery in many years, DEATH AT MORNING HOUSE, features Marlowe Wexler, a queer teen who unlike Stevie, is no detective. Heartbroken after a disastrous date, she finds herself in a summer job working at a grand but dilapidated house in the Thousand Islands region of northern New York at the Canadian border. It’s there she stumbles upon two mysteries—one in the present day and one kept concealed since the 1930s. The novel begins with a fire, though it wasn’t Marlowe’s fault. But she’s sure that Akilah, the girl Marlowe has been in love with for years, will never go out with her again. No one dates an accidental arsonist. With her house-sitting career up in flames, Marlowe ends up as a tour guide at Morning House, a mansion built by Dr. Phillip Ralston, where he once lived with his wife, six adopted children, and young son. Marlowe uncovers a series of clues that lead her to the dreadful realization that the grounds of Morning House are hiding a horrific secret.