The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels

Published in 2023, Beth Lincoln’s The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels is a middle grade mystery novel and the first installment of the Swifts series. The story follows Shenanigan Swift, a mischievous girl from a family where names are chosen from a dictionary and are believed to define one’s destiny. During a family reunion at their ancestral home, a series of suspicious events, including the injury of the family matriarch, leads Shenanigan to investigate the mysteries surrounding her eccentric relatives. The story combines wordplay, humor, and a classic whodunit, exploring themes of self-determination, tradition, and greed. The New York Times best-selling novel won a Barnes & Noble Children’s Book Award and a Librarian Favorites Award.

This guide refers to the e-book edition published by Penguin Random House in 2023.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death, graphic violence, animal cruelty.

Plot Summary

Shenanigan Swift lives at her family’s estate with Uncle Maelstrom, her older sister Phenomena, her eldest sister Felicity, a woman named Cook, and the family matriarch, Aunt Schadenfreude. In early May, Aunt Inheritance, who is tasked with preserving the family’s history, calls for a Swift family reunion. The traditional reunion doubles as a treasure hunt for the fortune that belonged to Vile Swift, who lived during the 1600s. Shenanigan is determined to find the treasure before one of her visiting relatives does. At Maelstrom’s suggestion, she makes a map of the house’s many secret rooms and hidden passageways.

The Swifts name their children by choosing a word from the family dictionary at random, and they believe that their names reveal their destinies. As a result, Inheritance and Schadenfreude both believe that Shenanigan will always be a troublemaker, much to the girl’s frustration. All living Swifts have gravestones with their names on them in the mansion’s cellar, and Shenanigan wants to destroy her monument to defy the family’s belief that her name defines her. On the first night of Inheritance’s visit, Shenanigan sees the woman enter a hidden room.

The next day marks the start of the Swift family reunion. The manor is filled with guests, including a child around Shenanigan’s age called Erf, a young woman named Flora who warns Shenanigan and Erf not to trust their relatives, and Flora’s kindly identical twin, Fauna. As the Swift matriarch, Schadenfreude resolves disputes between relatives. Everyone accepts her judgments, except for Candour Swift. He asks for her blessing on him and his fiancée, Daisy DeMille, but Schadenfreude refuses. The elderly woman announces that she will choose the new head of the family in three days.

Later that evening, someone pushes Schadenfreude down a staircase and tries to make it look as though she fell. Phenomena quickly realizes that this was a murder attempt and informs her sisters. According to the Swift family’s rules, Inheritance is in charge while the matriarch is unconscious. Inheritance refuses to contact the police and instead asks Gumshoe Swift, a private detective, to take the case. Phenomena, Shenanigan, Felicity, and Erf form their own investigative team. Overnight, someone ensures that nobody can leave the manor by stealing all the cars’ steering wheels, cutting the phone line, and chaining the estate’s gates shut.

The children compile a list of suspects, including Daisy, Inheritance, either Flora or Fauna, Candour, and affluent and snide siblings named Pique and Atrocious. Shenanigan overhears Daisy worrying that she’s done something terrible and Flora urging the woman to stick to their plan. This convinces Shenanigan that Daisy tried to kill Schadenfreude so that she could marry Candour. After dinner, Gumshoe is found dead in the library. The detective appears to have been killed by a booby-trapped book, but Shenanigan, Phenomena, and Erf suspect that he was murdered.

The Swifts are now convinced that there is a killer among them. A man named Pamplemousse challenges the traitor to a duel of Scrabble to the death. The next morning, the killer uses a series of arrows to communicate their chosen words. Shenanigan spots the archer on the roof but is prevented from pursuing them. The archer wins the duel and kills Pamplemousse. Shenanigan and Phenomena recover the fatal crossbow bolt, which bears a brief note in the killer’s handwriting. Shenanigan, Phenomena, and Erf learn that the killer kicked Shenanigan’s cat so that they could access the roof via Shenanigan’s bedroom window. The young investigators also deduce that a booby trap killed Gumshoe when he removed a legal book from a library shelf. The traitor crushed his head with a statue so that they could take the book and the crossbow without anyone realizing that either item was missing.

Shenanigan, Felicity, and Phenomena quarrel because Shenanigan hid Inheritance’s secret room from her sisters, Felicity wants her siblings to stop their investigation, and Phenomena insults Shenanigan’s competence as a detective. Fauna helps Shenanigan understand that the family treats Felicity poorly because of her ordinary name, and she encourages Erf to be true to themself. Maelstrom and Inheritance bring Shenanigan and her sisters to the hidden room, and the adults reveal that they’ve been searching for Vile’s Hoard for years. The situation is urgent because the family is in dire financial straits and because someone at the reunion is willing to kill to seize the treasure. Maelstrom asks to see Shenanigan’s map, but it’s gone missing. As a result, they resort to using a machine built by one of their ancestors to allow the dead to communicate with the living. Through the device, a ghost warns them of imminent danger, says that the treasure is under the house, and informs them that the cat knows the murderer’s identity.

Cook declares that Schadenfreude has succumbed to her injuries, and the Swifts hold her funeral in the estate’s graveyard. Shenanigan notices a resemblance between the place cards, which were written by Daisy, and the note on the crossbow bolt. She points out this similarity to Candour, who promises to talk to Daisy. Later that day, someone destroys the evidence that the children gathered, sets the secret room ablaze, and shoots Flora. While Maelstrom, Phenomena, Inheritance, Felicity, and Fauna are busy grappling with these disasters, the Swifts accuse Cook of being the murderer because they don’t consider her part of the family.

Shenanigan sees Daisy pointing a crossbow at Candour and follows them into the hedge maze. The girl distracts Daisy, and the doctor knocks her unconscious. Almost immediately, Shenanigan realizes that he is the murderer, and he admits that he planned to marry Daisy for her fortune and to become the family’s new leader. To ensure that no one else can succeed Schadenfreude, Candour poisons everyone in the house with laughing gas. To buy herself time, Shenanigan tells Candour that she has a clue about the treasure. She leads him to the cellar and shows him a gravestone for the house, but Vile’s Hoard isn’t there. Phenomena and Felicity try to save their sister, and the wan, shrouded figure of Schadenfreude appears. Candour is so startled by this apparition that he knocks over a shelf and is incapacitated by falling gravestones.

Schadenfreude reveals that she faked her death, and Candour is battered but alive as well. The matriarch gathers everyone in her study so that those close to the case can share their parts in the mystery. Daisy explains that Candour stole from her and threatened to make her family laughingstocks unless she went through with the marriage. Flora tried to help her find a way out of the engagement and was shot by Candour as a result. As punishment for his crimes, Schadenfreude excommunicates Candour from the Swift family and seizes all his assets. Schadenfreude appoints Fauna as the family’s new matriarch, and the new leader calls upon the family to embrace change and growth. As part of this new direction, Fauna asks the family to cooperate with the police so that Candour can be brought to justice. Shenanigan discovers a treasure map hidden in the family dictionary under the definition of “house,” but she decides to keep the Hoard’s location a secret for the time being.