Everyone's favorite amateur sleuth, Philomela Nightingale, visits her sister in the town of Saltaire. While coping with a thieving museum volunteer and a charlatan psychic, the two women become involved with an identity theft, a hit-and-run car accident, and a murder. The search for clues is overshadowed by a ladies fashion-show and a compulsive shopper and, this time, Philomela's powers of observation and intuition might not be strong enough for her to help the police solve these three serious puzzles.