Moving to Washington DC in the 1940s, 17 year old Philippa Watson is lonely until she meets Judy Peabody, a brilliant and tempestuous classmate. The friends fall under the sway of teacher Christine Martins, who enthralls them with detective fiction. After Philippa sees a man assaulting Miss Martins, the teacher returns to school as a dark shell of herself. In this first volume of a trilogy, a classmate is found dead in the Anacostia River, and the girls have an unexpected link to these two mysteries.