When journalist Julia Wright and her golden retriever Cooper are stranded by a blinding snowstorm, they take refuge in the grand but slightly crumbling Halcyon Manor Inn—expecting cocoa, creaky floors, and a quiet night out of the weather. Instead, they find a house full of secrets. With the inn’s nervous owner and a gallery of suspicious guests—including a theatrical actress with a flair for drama and a brilliant but temperamental mathematician—tensions rise as fast as the snowdrifts outside. Then one guest is found dead in a locked room… with the only key inside. As power flickers, accusations fly, and Cooper’s nose uncovers clues no one else sees, Julia is pulled deeper into a web of blackmail, hidden passages, missing documents, and old grudges that refuse to stay buried. With a killer trapped inside the manor—and another attempt on someone’s life already underway—Julia must solve the puzzle before the storm lifts and the murderer slips away forever.