The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers

In 1991, Pippa Allsbrook, the sixty-four-year-old founder of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, a commune housed in a grand estate in Bedfordshire, England, discovers a hatbox on her front steps containing a crying newborn baby boy. The hatbox bears the gold-embossed initials H.H. Pippa glimpses movement in the shrubbery, but no one steps forward. She cradles the child and feels an immediate, overwhelming bond.

Twenty-five years later, in 2016, Clayton Stumper, the man that baby has become, stands beside Pippa's open coffin. He is the club's secretary and estate manager, the youngest person in a household of aging puzzlemakers. Pippa's death has intensified a compulsion he long suppressed out of loyalty: the need to discover who his biological parents are.

In alternating chapters, the novel traces the Fellowship's origins. In 1979, Pippa, a professional crossword compiler for The Times who publishes under the male-sounding pseudonym "Squire," organizes the first meeting at a London pub. She is fifty-two, unmarried, and fiercely intelligent, having hidden her gender to succeed in a male-dominated field. At the inaugural session, she meets Earl Vosey, a handsome mazemaker she is immediately drawn to. The members articulate why they puzzle: for destiny, ritual, respite, and fellowship.

At Pippa's wake in 2016, Clayton notices Nancy Stone, a former member once known as the Queen of Quizzes. During a clear-out of Pippa's bedroom, he finds the hatbox he arrived in, hidden under her bed. Inside is a wax-sealed letter from Pippa containing a crossword and instructions for a puzzle trail designed to reveal his origins. A hidden acrostic, a message formed by the first letters of each paragraph, spells "DANIELLES," pointing him to Pippa's Danielle Steel novels, where he finds a wooden puzzle box called the Alphabetibox. Inside, he discovers an ornate skeleton key with the letter H carved into it and an index card bearing Nancy Stone's London address.

The flashbacks build the Fellowship's history. Pippa discovers that Hector Haywood, a quiet illustrative painter, has been living out of his yellow campervan and offers him lodging. They become close friends. In 1980, she meets Nancy Stone, a London cab driver with a photographic memory, during a taxi ride and recruits her to the Fellowship. Nancy and Pippa become fast friends, and Nancy introduces Pippa to Danielle Steel's novels.

Clayton departs Creighton Hall for his first solo trip to London. Hector gives him a miniature hourglass filled with Pippa's ashes. At Nancy's house, her carer, Neil, a tall, bearded young man, lets Clayton in, and Clayton feels an immediate connection. Nancy arrives and recognizes Clayton but says she cannot give him direct answers. She hands him a padded envelope from Pippa, the next clue on the trail. Clayton and Neil walk together along the canal toward Neil's houseboat, Serendipity, sharing their life stories.

In 1981, Pippa takes the members to Creighton Hall, once her family's ancestral home, and proposes buying it as a permanent commune, funded by her inheritance and a grant from the late Sir Derek Wadlow, a founding Fellowship member. Most vote in favor. Earl, whose wife Rosa has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer, keeps his arms folded, devastated the club is moving from London. A decade later, Pippa invites the now-widowed Earl to visit. He gradually recovers during the stay, gives Pippa a fostering pamphlet that awakens her suppressed desire to raise a child, and moves in on a trial basis.

In 2016, Clayton returns to Nancy for help with a cryptogrid, a coded word-grid puzzle from Pippa. They decode answers pointing to Harrods, where Pippa kept a safety deposit box. Clayton notices Nancy's hat collection and learns her father ran a millinery called Hackney Hatters, whose initials match the H.H. on his hatbox. He suspects Nancy may be his birth mother. Nancy gives him a puzzle ring inscribed with the Greek word philia, meaning platonic love, saying it was gifted to her by a man she loved. At Harrods, Clayton opens Pippa's safe and retrieves an oil painting of a young boy who looks similar to, but is not, him.

The 1991 flashbacks grow darker. Pippa has been struggling with the Fellowship's finances. She announces her fostering application, but an anonymous objection letter blocks the plan, since Fellowship rules require unanimous consent. A ceiling collapse during the social worker's visit leads to the application's rejection on safety grounds. Hector proposes a spring fayre to raise funds. Meanwhile, Nancy, heartbroken over Jonty Entwistle, a Fellowship lexicographer who gave her a friendship ring rather than an engagement ring, leaves in the night. Jonty's relationship with Nancy was complicated by his repressed sexuality; at the fayre, he arrives with his partner, Edwin Dankworth, an art collector. The fayre is a massive success, saving the Fellowship. Afterward, Pippa and Earl share their first kiss in the center of the maze.

In 2016, Neil suggests checking the back of the portrait, where Clayton finds a sticker with the name Jonty Entwistle at a nursing home. Jonty provides little direct information, but Edwin gives Clayton another parcel from Pippa. Clayton notices a portrait on Jonty's wall signed "Bert E. Wangles," a name he cannot yet decode. Clayton and Neil grow closer. After being mugged on the canal towpath, Neil brings Clayton back to Serendipity to recover. Clayton privately acknowledges his attraction to Neil. He opens Pippa's final parcel: a blind jigsaw with no picture on the box. He and Neil assemble it together, and the completed image depicts a pink house in Amsterdam with a conspicuous missing piece where the front door should be. Clayton realizes Pippa is directing him to this building. He kisses Neil, and Neil kisses him back.

The final 1991 flashback provides the last pieces of backstory. Angel Webster, the Fellowship's eccentric housekeeper who has been apprenticing as a painter in Hector's studio, leaves to pursue art in Europe, taking only a hatbox and a custard-yellow blanket. Pippa discovers a portrait of a young boy, painted by Angel, in Hector's studio. Twelve weeks later, Hector confides his full tragedy: He lost his wife Elizabeth and son Lucas in a car accident caused by a drunk driver eighteen months before joining the Fellowship.

Clayton wakes to find Serendipity has moved and Neil is gone. He sends a postcard with his phone number via Nancy, then takes the Eurostar to Amsterdam alone. With help from a tram conductor, he locates the pink house: Het Kunsthuis (The Art House), a boutique hotel. The receptionist recognizes his name and hands him a pre-prepared envelope. Clayton realizes she is his birth mother. The letter inside, from Hector, reveals the full truth: Hector is Clayton's biological father, and the receptionist, Angel Webster, is his mother. They had a brief relationship while Angel was Hector's studio assistant. She left the Fellowship before knowing she was pregnant, then delivered Clayton back to Creighton Hall in one of Nancy's old Hackney Hatters hatboxes, believing the Fellowship could love him better than she could. Clayton decodes the pseudonym: Bert E. Wangles is an anagram of Angel Webster.

Angel explains she never felt maternal love and knew the Fellowship was a better home. Hector arrives the following day, and they walk through Vondelpark. He explains he kept the secret because Pippa and Earl loved Clayton from the moment he arrived. They made a pact: Pippa would raise Clayton, and the truth would emerge only after one of them died.

At the Fellowship's twenty-fifth annual fayre, held under the motto "Again, in a different way," Clayton hosts the event at Creighton Hall. Nancy returns to host a sold-out pub quiz. In the center of the maze, beneath a weeping willow now bearing a memorial plaque to Hector's first wife and son, Clayton sits with Earl, Nancy, and Hector. Earl presses Clayton's hand to his chest and tells him he is the best thing the Fellowship ever produced. Neil arrives, having gotten lost in the maze. Clayton drapes an arm around him and leads the group inside, finally confident in his direction.