As a teacher, Jeffrey Devereaux is finding his professional life increasingly burdened with tension, friction, and needless bureaucracy. When the incompetent female principal of his grammar school is replaced by an equally incompetent but much more cantankerous male principal, Jeffrey welcomes the chance for a winter-vacation escape to Florida.

What should be a peaceful week of sunshine and relaxation shared with Kirsten Eriksson at her aunt's retreat on the Gulf Coast turns out to be anything but when they become involved with solving a murder which is somehow connected to newly-discovered artifacts dating from contact between local Indians and Conquistadores in the sixteenth century.

Also included is an additional bonus: a never-before-published short story, Whispers Upon the Wind, in which Jeffrey and Kirsten are asked to investigate the mysterious origin of a fresco hidden within Hammond Castle Museum. How and where did the castle's builder obtain it? And was it legal or illegal to import such European artwork to Gloucester, Massachusetts, even during the freewheeling Roaring Twenties?