Chas Wheatley, a food writer with a taste for sleuthing, once again takes on the scandalous world of Washington tongue-waggers and the deep-throated secrets of the restaurant business.

Researching her new column, Chas discovers something is rotten with Washington's most popular new restaurant. The head chef has gone missing, and no one is willing to give her a straight answer as to his whereabouts. Bodies begin to surface around the nation's capital, confounding the police. But Chas' clever eye for detail, her love of good gossip, and her connections in the newspaper and culinary worlds lead her into the underbelly of the business—and onto a twisted trail of deceit, blackmail, and murder.