One of the most popular citizens of Virginia's Albemarle County is dead - and has been for nearly 170 years. But that hasn't stopped the good people of the community - and the picturesque village of Crozet - from taking pride in every aspect of Thomas Jefferson's life.

When a new archaeological dig of the slave quarters of Jefferson's home, Monticello, turns up the skeleton of what appears to he a well-to-do man buried beneath a fireplace, it creates a mystery that some of Crozet's Very Best People would rather keep quiet.

Looking deeply into a two hundred-year-old crime turns out to be a dangerous enterprise. Beneath the patina of Southern gentility raw emotions are turning violent and a modern corpse soon joins the old bones at Monticello. But who committed the long-ago Monticello murder...and how is it tied to the new one? With a sharp feline eye for human foibles, Sneaky Pie Brown - and her human co-author Rita Mae Brown - have once more produced a mystery that is as addictive and delightful as a catnip mouse.