Dr. Andrew Fenimore is an old-fashioned individualist-averse to HMOs but not to house calls, and a deft detective as well. When a murderer strikes in the seaside home of two of his elderly patients, Judith and Emily Pancoast, he leaves Philadelphia for the winter waves of Seacrest.

The Pancoasts' niece, Pamela, was found dead over her Thanksgiving dessert plate-her demise staged beforehand in precise detail in the ladies' elaborate dollhouse, a marvelous replica of their Victorian home replete with dolls to represent each member of the family.

The dollhouse, always the sisters' delight and the town's pride, now seems a sinister foreshadow of death by design. With his dauntless nurse Doyle in tow, Fenimore faces a case more byzantine than most. Someone cunning, methodical, and intimate with each Pancoast family member is wreaking havoc-and getting away with murder in miniature...