Longlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour

Buddhist butler and reluctant investigator Helen Thorpe bands together with her fellow butler-school graduates to rescue her very wealthy employer and his son in this new mystery by bestselling author Susan Juby

Butler Helen Thorpe is not one to judge, but the participants in Close Encounters for Global Healing are astonishingly unpleasant.

The five-day program brings together people from across the political spectrum with the goal of helping them bridge their ideological and personal differences. Helen and her employer, Mr. Levine, have come to Side Island to assist David, his youngest son, who is facilitating the course. The motley assortment of participants includes a burned-out environmental activist, an internet troll, a clued-out consumerist, an alleged white nationalist, and a man who was arrested at the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa. No one seems interested in a civil conversation, much less global healing, and each person has shown up with their own secret agenda.

No rapprochement between the warring—or at least endlessly bickering—parties seems possible. But when something deadly happens, they must learn to work together. First, however, they must figure out who among them can be trusted.