Cece Caruso--mystery biographer extraordinaire, vintage clothing enthusiast, and part-time sleuth--is in freefall. First, she calls off her wedding, for reasons even she can't explain. Second, her newest biography (of Alfred Hitchcock) is way past deadline.

So Cece puts on a houndstooth suit with peplum and heads out to see "Vertigo," only to come home with a cell phone belonging to a stranger named Anita Colby. Nothing if not a good citizen, Cece tries to return the cell phone--only to hear someone push Anita off a cliff.

Now a woman is dead, and Cece is under suspicion (tip: don't leave rambling, incoherent messages on someone's answering machine just before she gets murdered). To clear her name and put the real murderer in jail, Cece's going on the lam, where she'll encounter mysterious strangers, unhelpful strippers, a bottle of blond hair dye, and twists and turns so eerie it's as if Hitch himself were writing the script.

A new suspense-themed housing tract on the edge of the Mojave Desert is about to open, and who better to help promote the Cotswold-cozy development than mystery biographer extraordinaire Cece Caruso? For the grand opening weekend, Cece is staging a play featuring the beloved sleuth Miss Marple. Of course, everything goes wrong, including a leading lady who ends up dead.

All is not well in Christietown; its secrets are as complicated as the truth behind Agatha Christie's real-life disappearance. The developer, an Englishman who claims to be Dame Agatha's descendent, has ruthless investors breathing down his neck. Meanwhile, Cece's got a wedding to plan, a baby shower to give, and an ex-husband who shows up on her doorstep with his fiancee and future mother-in-law. And when another body surfaces, the intrepid amateur sleuth knows she must play the famed detective for real--or suffer the same mysterious fate.