Seattle's classical music station KLEG, kept alive as the pet project of the wealthy Payne family, plays LPs rather than CDs, has creditors but no cachet, and regularly puts its elderly audience to sleep--except in the wee hours when sultry Teresa, Queen of the Night, keeps insomniacs in a state of erotic anticipation. KLEG is also the only place musician Alice Jordan can find a job after her dentist husband runs off with his hygienist. The ramshackle studio appalls her, the hostile staff intimidates her, but the corpse in the couch is about to awaken her latent talent for snooping . . . or is that sleuthing? Dead is sleazy ad man Ed Costello, who was making peanuts selling airtime for KLEG, but raked in the big bucks running an escort service from the station. The police think there's a killer among Ed's call girls. Alice, offering her help to a handsome homicide detective named Lukowski, suspects the most loopy employees at KLEG; a weird survivalist named Chip she found in Ed's phone register; and the mysterious Teresa, who tapes her shows and remains incognito. Alice is in for a shock when she starts to uncover the secrets hidden among the vinyl--and the real motive for Ed's demise. There's more trouble brewing at KLEG, and if Alice doesn't get a beat on the killer, she may be hearing a swan song for her own life. . . .