Frank Pooler is called to help lead a culinary school that hasn't even opened yet and whose founding president has died mysteriously. And no one seems to care that Frank's predecessor even died, never mind how or why, including the dead president's wife. The school has an odd assortment of staff and faculty; the uppity vice president, the chef with the raging libido who comes on to everyone, and the admin who cleans fish, among others. Frank has to pull this odd group together and takes on a personal mission to find out why the founding president died even though that death fell into the cracks of the system that plagues an overworked ME, the equally overworked local police, and a wildly divergent local population.