Set in 1953, Katherine Watson is a free-spirited graduate of UCLA who accepts a teaching post at Wellesley College, a women-only school where the students are torn between the repressive mores of the time and their longing for intellectual freedom.
Professor Jasper Tempest and the team untangle a series of knotty crimes ranging from an unexplained fire in a student block to the mystery of an entire family found dead in their home.
