Submerged Surprises is the 16th book in the Secrets of Wayfarers Inn cozy mystery series.
The Inn Crowd’s friend Margaret Ashworth, the head of the Marietta Historical Society, disappears after sharing an old Civil War–era newspaper clipping about a pouch of gold that went missing. As LuAnn, Tess, and Janice try to help Margaret’s great-niece figure out what could have happened and where Margaret could be, LuAnn finds an old McGuffey Reader and a Confederate cipher wheel, seeming to point to the gold’s—and possibly Margaret’s—location. Meanwhile, Ashley, a former student of LuAnn’s, is in town re-searching the Castle, a local historical site undergoing renovation. But Ashley’s strange behavior makes LuAnn wonder if something more than a deadline is causing her distress.