"Lucy doesn't know what to expect as she arrives on a private Maine island owned by eccentric billionaire Scott Newman, only that the exclusive experience should make for a very intriguing feature story. An avid environmentalist, Scott has stripped the isolated property of modern conveniences in favor of an extreme eco-friendly lifestyle. A trip to Holiday Island is like traveling back to the nineteenth century, and it turns out other residents aren't...

Ten-year-old Rupert, from a very large, very poor family, accidently becomes part of an eccentric rich family's life beginning at Christmas, and soon sees that wealth is not everything.

Ruth Puttermesser lives in New York City. Her learning is monumental. Her love life is minimal (she prefers pouring through Plato to romping with married Morris Rappoport). And her fantasies have a disconcerting tendency to come true - with disastrous consequences for what we laughably call "reality."

When Adrian Monk and Natalie come home to San Francisco after working as cops in New Jersey, Natalie discovers somebody has been sleeping in her bed, but this Goldilocks is not asleep--she's dead!

In the midst of a financial crisis, the SFPD fires Adrian Monk as a consultant. Monk figures he can live off his savings for a while. Then Natalie learns that Monk invested his money some time ago with Bob Sebes, the charismatic leader of Reinier Investments, who's just been arrested on charges of orchestrating a massive $100 million fraud. All of Sebes' clients-including Monk-are completely wiped out. When the key witness in the government's case...

Monk investigates three strangers and murder victims--a security guard, a struggling student, and a beautiful woman--who have nothing in common but a couch.