Delighted by the promise of living and working in a glittering Gilded Age mansion, Minerva Biggs moves to idyllic Bryd Hollow, North Carolina with her dog Plantagenet. She's looking for a new beginning; what she finds is five quite possibly deranged people, four French bulldogs, two distracting dimples attached to one inconvenient man ... and one murder.

Nope, make that two murders. When Minerva makes a connection between her new employer's fatal fall and the death of his celebrated great-grandfather in the same spot more than a century before, she doubts that either was an accident. Delving into old secrets and new grudges, she begins to unravel the twisted threads that bind past to present. Right up until she tangles them around the wrong guy. Oops.

With a trial looming, a scandal raging, and her job prospects dwindling, Minerva races to solve both crimes. Preferably before her new beginning comes to an unfortunate end.