The twenty-first installment of Mary Daheim's series featuring Emma Lord proves once again that life in the peaceful town of Alpine is anything but

In Emma Lord's newest outing, a fight erupts at the local tavern, and a patron is murdered with a pool cue. What initially seems to be an open-and-shut case disintegrates into the contradictory and confused recountings of the murder's many witnesses. Each one has an agenda behind the story - some of them committed enough to lie. And it's up to Emma Lord and her longtime compatriot, Sherriff Milo Dodge, to figure it out.