The Quilliam sisters Quill and Meg are glad to escape Hemlock Falls' snow and cold weather with a trip to tropical Palm Beach, sponsored by a rich divorcee for her new "charity." Meg hopes to earn a chef's "third star" at the charity's Institute for Fine Foods, and Quill will teach a management seminar. The sisters soon learn they are caught in the middle of a war between the the charity's spiteful sponsor and her enraged, immensely powerful ex-husband. As the fighting surrounding this "charity" for rich divorcees escalates, Quill and Meg become embroiled in sinister feuds and murder. The sisters set out to find the killer in this sunny Florida setting that seems like paradise ... but where smiles can be as artificial as the facelifts of the charity's youth-conscious attendees.