Claire Claiborne, the sophisticated owner of Eclaire's, a luxurious New Orleans hair salon, is drawn into a mystery involving family secrets, blackmail, counterfeiting, and murder when she investigates the death of her manicurist. A first novel.

Solving the client's bad hair problems will give her the chance to show off her techniques for her own upscale New Orleans salon, Eclaire. However, when a participant gets permanently "waived", Claire finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery.

Claire and Dan Claiborne suspect there's a catch when rich and stingy Mrs. Shelby Bell invites them to stay at the Bell Sands, her oceanfront resort east of Biloxi, Mississippi. When they arrive to torrential rain and a beauty pageant spiraling out of control, their suspicions are confirmed. As the couple attempts to discover who's sabotaging Miss Gulf Coast, a series of homicides threaten the beauty queens.

While attending the wedding of their best friends in New Orleans, Claire and Dan Claiborne find themselves drawn into a murder mystery, when one of the female guests is found scalped and stabbed to death in her room at the swanky Riverside Manor Hotel