Newly unemployed teacher Mary Colleen Malone never suspected she'd become a Miss Marple wannabe when she and her recently widowed aunt decided to sublet her private investigator brother's apartment in the Foley complex near Loring Park in downtown Minneapolis. After having listened to a message intended for the PI's ears only, Mary is determined to solve what sounds like an easy case for Reed Griffin, owner of the Bar X Ranch, and soon finds herself not only facing down her demons from childhood - fear of horses - but also being surrounded by two deaths and three very deceiving men.