While Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree has moved on from fixing up houses, she still can't resist the urge to snoop into the occasional murder. Something sinister is brewing in the kitchen of The Chocolate Moose - retired health inspector Alan Blake is found murdered. Jake's best friend Ellie never made a secret of her distaste for Alan. Now, with no alibi for the night of the murder, she's in a sticky situation with the police - and it's up to Jake to catch...

After more than three decades eluding justice, the man who murdered Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree's mother is finally about to stand trial--until he vanishes into thin air. Jake has a terrible foreboding of where Ozzie Campbell will turn up next. And while the local police chief is sure she's overreacting, the truth is far worse than even Jake's worst fears.

As a toddler, in a room illuminated only by the flames of a fallen candle, Jacobia Tiptree watched a man kill her mother. Jake once believed that man to be her father. Now, thirty-five years after the murder, as the real killer's long-delayed trial is about to begin, the defendant has vanished. Jake tries to distract herself from murder with the constant attempts to keep her 1823 Federal-style fixer-upper from tumbling down on her head. But when her...