Mr. Popper's Penguins is the story of a boy whose explorer father loves him but neglects him in favor of his career. Once the boy grows to sharkish real-estate wheeler-dealer manhood in NYC, he does the same thing to his wife, daughter, and son. Promised a partner position in his real-estate firm, he woos a reluctant seller to part with the Tavern on the Green. Life is going fine until his dad's final gift to him arrives. Then Mr. Popper's life changes...

Brilliant, dedicated, and driven, archaeologist Emma Fielding is trying to unearth evidence of a seventeenth century coastal Maine settlement that predates Jamestown, one of the most significant archaeological finds in years. But the dead body that accompanies it has embroiled Emma and her students in a different kind of exploration.

The apparently perfect lives of three mothers of first graders unravel to the point of murder.