Cordially Cruel

Ellingham Institute is a famous private college in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early 20th-century tycoon who aspired to build a wonderful place filled with riddles, winding paths, and gardens. “A place,” he used to say, “where learning is a game.”

Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a riddle-filled letter listing methods of committing murder, signed under the chilling pseudonym “Cordially, Cruel.” It became one of the greatest unsolved crimes in American history.

Stevie Bell, a true crime enthusiast, is about to start her first year at Ellingham Institute and has an ambitious plan: solve the famous case. That is, once she manages to cope with her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the “class clown.”

But something strange is happening. Cordially, Cruel seems to be lurking, and death returns to Ellingham Institute. The past has crawled out of its grave. And someone has committed murder and gotten away with it.