Accompanied as always by her companion and confidante, Maude Cunningham, and her major domo, Kinkade, Miss Abigail Patience Danforth was putting an end to what she saw as yet another attempt by Maude to act as matchmaker as they sat on their balcony at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on Oahu. But for once, Maude was not thinking of romance. She suspected that someone was poisoning the rightful heir to a sugar fortune, Matthew Tarkington, in a most diabolical way by making it appear that he had the symptoms of the beginning of leprosy—the mere suspicion of which would be cause enough to have him banished to the hell-on-earth that was the leper colony on Molokai. But just as Miss Danforth finally agrees to look into the matter, the household is struck by disaster. The body of Princess Lilliana, a cousin of deposed Hawaiian royalty, is discovered, and Kinkade, normally the most sedate and sensible of men, confesses to the murder, and it is against his will that Miss Danforth must prove his innocence. In spite of the danger to herself, Miss Danforth not only uncovers the real murderer of the princess, she exposes the plot to banish Matthew. In doing so, many of the secrets of Hawaii’s elite are exposed to an unmerciful tropical sun.

In 1900, a female was the property of either a father or husband, and for a girl of her station to become anything but a wealthy man’s wife was unthinkable. But Miss Abigail Patience Danforth was determined to usher in the twentieth century by becoming the world’s first female consulting detective, even after Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle himself tries to dissuade her and Mark Twain refuses to encourage her. Frederick, The Earl of Hunterswell is eager to ask Miss Danforth’s father for her hand, but then the fabulous Punjat’s ruby, intended as a gift for the Prince of Wales, disappears from Hunterswell House and Miss Danforth is pitched headlong into her first case. With Lord Frederick in tow, Miss Danforth returns to her father’s Gramercy Park mansion in New York where she enlists the help of the famous actor, Will Gillette, who was starring in “Sherlock Holmes” on Broadway, to help her pursue her elusive quarry – risking her life to retrieve The Punjat’s Ruby.

Encouraged by Miss Danforth's decision to become the world's first female consulting detective, her chaperone, Maude Cunningham, begs Abigail to find the killer who gunned down her beloved fiancé on the streets of San Francisco's Chinatown. Eager to help her friend and to tackle a new and challenging case, Abigail recalls the advice of her mentor, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and begins the process of logical detection, unaware that sinister forces, desperate to stop her, are already watching her and anticipating her every move. Disguised as a gentleman, with the young writer Jack London as her guide, Miss Danforth leaves the safety of her wealthy hostess's Nob Hill mansion to interview the sleazy denizens of the Barbary Coast, determined to solve the crime by unveiling the secrets hidden in The Cat's Eye.

Fresh from her heady success at retrieving the Punjat’s ruby for the Prince of Wales, Miss Abigail Patience Danforth and her entourage are speeding toward San Francisco in a private railroad car when their journey is interrupted by train robbers. They murder her new friend, and steal her beloved horse, Crosspatches, along with Marshal Bill Tilghman’s foundation sire—an Arabian, priceless as a monarch’s pearl. Far from the familiar boulevards of London and New York where she had schooled herself in the infant science of detection, Miss Danforth disdains the famous lawman’s old-fashioned, slow methods of tracking fugitives across the vast wilderness that was then the Oklahoma Territory and creates her own – her only clue, the killer’s love of chocolate.

Embarking on a pleasure sail from Panama to New Orleans, Miss Abigail Patience Danforth encounters a murder upon The Seascape, finds her skills as a detective fully tested and realizes that she is the killer's next target.

Houdini, bound in chains and submerged in water, could defy nature and hold his breath long enough to escape. Not so an ordinary seaman. The unfortunate fellow had seen too much while laying in provisions aboard The Seascape, the Tibaults’ luxury yacht. Those intent upon preserving their secret did not hesitate to silence him with a blow to the head and, binding his ankles with chains not unlike those used by the great escape artist, toss him overboard. Submerged in the Caribbean, he regained consciousness. But he panicked. Feeling the weight upon his legs, he gasped for air. His death was deemed an accident—no reason to delay departure—Malcolm Tibault had money enough to bribe the officials and compensate the family—so as Miss Abigail Patience Danforth, and Houdini, board The Seascape in Panama to sail to New Orleans they are unaware of the drowning. But when Malcolm Tibault himself dies, and his body is committed to the deep before it can be examined for poison, it is Miss Danforth who suspects the worst and captures the murderer.