It's October in Martha's Point, Virginia. Ivy Morris is busy running her combination costume/lingerie shop and enjoying life with her boyfriend, Ben Fallon. Ivy loves a good meal, and she is upset when her favorite chef, Jerry Boucheron, must close his restaurant due to the death of one of his waiters. The waiter, Aaron Sylvan, was found in Jerry's kitchen, burned, though it looked like he was killed elsewhere, and the restaurant fire centered on Aaron's body. Ben, who is a private eye as well as a newspaper advice columnist, is investigating on behalf of Aaron's sister, Heather. However, Heather is acting cagey and disappears. Word is both Aaron and Heather were due to come into a sizeable inheritance. A third brother, Mark, is not due to come into the inheritance. Aaron had both a fiancée and pregnant mistress. Can Ivy and Ben unravel the case?

This book was confusing in part. I feel like large chunks of information were left out, and there was too little description of the murder itself or the suspects. Indeed, the murder victim isn't even named until near the end of the story. The solution came out of the blue and was far-fetched to say the least. In addition, one is given to believe that the same murderer was responsible for setting all the past murders Ivy was involved in in motion which was just beyond belief and made it hard for someone who hasn't read the previous books in the series to have any sort of understanding. Parts of the story show promise, like the dialogue, and I guess I did finish the book, but bleh. ( )