After a long, successful career as a director on Broadway, Claire Gray moved cross-country to head the theater department of the new Desert Arts College near Palm Springs, California. Imagine Claire's surprise - after some thirty years of a largely peaceful existence in Manhattan - when her new life is darkened by a second murder investigation within mere months of her move.

Stewart Chaffee, an aging, eccentric art collector and society decorator, has agreed to lend Claire an antique Austrian clock that will provide the finishing touch to the stage setting of her first production at the college. When Claire arrives as scheduled to pick up the rare timepiece, she finds Chaffee dead, victim of what appears to be a gruesome kitchen accident. But the police investigation quickly determines that Chaffee's demise was no mishap; it was murder. Tied to the crime by chance and circumstance, Claire decides to match wits with a clever, ruthless killer - racing against time to puzzle out the mystery before it's too late.