The past six months have been tough on River City, Missouri's leading florist Bretta Solomon. Still getting used to being a fairly young widow and upset over having regained some of the weight she worked so hard to lose, Bretta is throwing herself into her latest project: the restoration of her new home, the historic Beauchamp mansion.

Bretta and her flower shop staff have been working overtime, decorating for the upcoming public open house. But a week before the big event, catastrophe strikes: the mansion's former owner, River City matriarch Cameo Beauchamp is strangled in a roomful of people during a momentary blackout. But that's not the worst thing. The murder site is Bretta's ballroom during a dinner-party preview of the house, and several of River City's upstanding citizens are present. Cameo had just accused--but not named-someone in the group of blackmail, and the manner of her death makes them all murder suspects.

Ignoring her promise to local sheriff Sid Hancock not to get involved in the investigation, Bretta becomes determined to discover what deadly secrets the blackmailer had uncovered and reveal Cameo's killer - before becoming the next victim.