What you see isn't always what it seems.

It's 1884. Emma, now with a young son and no longer travelling with Daniel on the Mary B is finding it difficult to settle into small town life. Until she's called on by her friend and neighbour Henrietta Pickles to investigate the death of her father-in-law.

Who wanted Old Mr. Pickles dead? Was it his business partner, whom Emma recently confronted? Or is this about wills and inheritance? The police seem to think so when they arrest Henrietta's daughter Janet. Emma sets herself to expose the culprit and return Janet to her young family and the Primrose Tearoom.

But while she rallies family, new friends, and old enemies alike to the cause including Janey her annoying but indispensible maid-of-all-work, Daniel isn't thrilled that she's sticking her nose into other people's business.

And just what are her chances of success? She's well known and respected among the rivermen, but that's hardly the best recommendation for facing down the town authorities, or being accepted by the Ladies Benevolent Society. Can she convince the coroner and Sergeant Donovan they have it wrong before Janet is sent down south to that grim and forbidding edifice, the Melbourne Gaol, never to return?