For Libby Cord and her best friend, cop Greg Rose, it's like old times again in the upstate New York town of Cooper's Crossing when Deborah Woodward returns with her English husband, Clive, to open a bed-and-breakfast. The three of them had gone through school together before going their separate ways, and now here they are in the same place again. What could be better? Quite a bit, as it turns out. Clive seems intent on alienating everyone in town, from the Chief of Police to Greg's gentle wife, Mary. So no one is really surprised, or even all that sorry, when he turns up dead at the local office supply store, a six-inch-long letter opener protruding from his back. When the murder investigation stalls due to lack of evidence, Libby decides to take matters into her own hands. But, when so many people have a motive for murder, how can she ever narrow the field of suspects? And, does anybody really want her to?.