After weeks of relentless rain and fog, summer graces the Maine coast. Sarah Deane wants only to help her in-laws adjust to living in Ocean Tide, an "architect-designed home-town community," and enjoy the warm weather before she returns to teaching in the fall. She absolutely does not want to become embroiled in another murder investigation. Even when police find the body of an 18 year-old on Ocean Tide's golf course, Sarah vows not to let it sidetrack her from an agenda of rest and relaxation. But after a frightened boy causes her to discover a second murder victim, her curiosity-and protective impulses toward a child who may have seen too much-overpower her better judgment. Tiptoeing into territory better left to the authorities, Sarah unearths disturbing family ties and a lethal secret hidden just beneath Ocean Tide's veneer of squeaky clean community values...

Crotchety, seventy-something Julia Clancy of High Hope Farm feels a little wobbly one August morning. With stables to clean and riding lessons to give, the stoic New Englander ignores her symptoms-and ends up in the ER with a heart attack. Even then, she's insisting it's indigestion; even then, her sharp eyes don't miss a thing. And a glimpse of something highly unusual will entangle Julia Clancy in the baffling murder of a hospital VIP. The police soon have suspects galore and no hard evidence. But Julia tells her niece Sarah Deane what she saw...and what she fears: that the killer will get her next. Now amateur sleuth Sarah needs to make her own diagnosis of Julia's revelation and sew up the case before the star witness gets a fatal visit from Dr. Death....

The Drama School at Bowmouth College is staging its annual Halloween masquerade, known for being a little unusual. This year it's Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet with a twist—-Romiette and Julio instead. English professor and sometime amateur sleuth Sarah Deane has been recruited to assist backstage with the complicated costume changes. Drama students are known for being mischievous and high-strung, but this year things are a little more serious: During rehearsals a couple of the student actors pass the time by taking whacks at each other with the stage props, and their horseplay leaves Todd Mancuso, the brilliant actor playing Mercutio, wounded. And when Sarah stumbles upon a badly injured student hidden away in a stockroom on Halloween night, events take a turn for the worse. By the time the production is finally staged, a member of the faculty has been badly injured and a student has been killed. Talk about drama! Sarah gets involved, of course, to sort out a mess that involves academic politics, angry actors, and student activities gone horribly wrong.