When Fredericka Wing, librarian and writer, arrived at the peaceful village of South Sutton to take over the local bookshop for the summer, she was delighted. Everything was exactly as she had imagined it, and she anticipated a quiet, restful time with plenty of leisure to catch up on her writing. But a sudden series of events determined that Fredericka's summer should not go according to plan.
One of the daughters of the Sutton family was murdered, and it was Fredericka who found the body, slouched in the hammock at the back of the bookshop. Colonel Perter Mohun, retired Army Intelligence Officer, at the time teaching at Sutton College, acted as sleuth, assisting the local police. The Colonel had already met Fredericka at the bookshop, and before she knew it, Fredericka found herself in the role of Watson to the Colonel's Sherlock Holmes.
Absorbed as they were in tracking down the murderer, Fredericka and the Colonel yet had time to realize their growing love for each other, but their romance was checked by a second crime-the murder of Margie, unattractive adolescent help at the bookshop. It was an ingenious murder of intense cruelty and long drawn-out pain.
Fredericka herself nearly became the third victim, but Peter saved her and pinned down the murderer, thought even at the last he and the police very nearly lost the game, and for a tense moment were almost outwitted by the murderer.