The Briar Club

The New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye and The Rose Code returns with a haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington,DCboardinghouse during the McCarthy era. WashingtonDC1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood Housea down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovelymysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic roomshe draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Flisswhose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; policeman’s daughter Norawho finds herself entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Beatricewhose career has come to an end along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonousgung-ho Arlenewho has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare. Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their livesbut she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears the house apartthe Briar Club women must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst? Capturing the paranoia of the McCarthy era and evoking the changing roles for women in postwar AmericaThe Briar Club is an intimate and thrilling novel of secrets and loyalty put to the test.