Where social climbing is a home industry and membership in exclusive clubs often unobtainable, "Murder in the Hamptons" offers a unique motive for homicide: exclusion from a coveted world of social position in the exclusive Hamptons of Long Island, New York. Though fictional, the familiar scenes and characters in this novella bring to life a portrait of a beloved seashore town where in the words of bishop Reginal Herber, "every prospect pleases, and only man is vile."