A phone call announcing murder rudely interrupts a quiet Sunday morning for chief of police Susan Wren. The body of Lynnelle Hames, a quiet young woman newly arrived in Hampstead, Kansas, has been found near the isolated old house where she was living. Susan herself is a recent arrival in the small town. A former San Francisco cop, she chose to stay on as chief after solving the murder of her new husband one year before (The Winter Widow, SMP, 1992). With cold determination, Susan begins her investigation, but matters are soon complicated by the disappearance of a prominent citizen. As the vice-chancellor of Emerson College, Hilary Kalazar knew Lynnelle, who worked as a clerk-typist at the local school. Is Hilary's failure to arrive at the Dallas convention where she was scheduled to speak a coincidence, or is it somehow connected to Lynnelle's murder?