This is a classic detective mystery. Briefly, the plot concerns the death of a reclusive, elderly lady, who is the aunt to the female love interest and her brother, and sister to their mother. The investigating girl detective is among the school friends of the male love interest engaged to the female. The problem in this book would seem to be, 'who dun it'. Readers may be pulled in at the start by the appealing young woman Jax Gray who shows up needing a job as maid to a rather haughty old woman. Two lovers are the heart of the problem throughout the book. In this story Mary Eliska Girl Detective herself is seeking and finding someone to love -- and at times she may seem to be unprofessional for a police officer. The male love interest is a pure-bred British Gentleman, strong on sports, short on brains, impulsive in behavior. While Mary Eliska is in pursuit of a solution, readers run into two women daffy about the British Gentleman, his Uncle who loved a woman who was related to most of the protagonists and who fell to her death twenty years before, a gambling house owned by one of those who loved the Gentleman, and a bevy of others who are related in some fashion to those who enter into the action. There is a counterfeiting ring involving relatives of the protagonists some twenty years before. Early in the book an old and a bit strange woman is found murdered at her home and it just so happens that not too long before she is discovered, her servants were just chatting among themselves about the unusual household. There is a very complex maze from which for most of the tale you'll be wondering just how to emerge. You may be wondering where and when the 'secret passage' part comes in which is explained in its entirety only after readers get half-way through the book. It is a good mystery story, with loads of characters; an interesting tale with elements of excitement while readers wait for Mary Eliska Girl Detective to find the answers. Some of the characters are somewhat inexplicable in their motivations until the puzzle is revealed completely. All the clues are there, but finding the solution is a challenge.