Vandy Myrick has settled into her new life as Queenstown’s only Black private investigator. Her jobs are routine but satisfying, her life is recovering its glow after years of grappling with unfathomable grief. But when the Bartlett twins hire Vandy to protect their bedridden mother, the new case leads her into a web of violence and deception involving Q-town’s most influential family.

The Bartletts fear for the life of their mother, Merna, whose immense artistic talent is tangled with equally deep secrets. She knows too many sordid details about the history of her former employers, the Peete family. When Merna dies under mysterious circumstances, Vandy digs into the long-buried ties between the painter and the old powerbroker family. The Peetes control most of Q-town’s commerce, industry, and information sources. What did their maid Merna Bartlett know? Will Vandy’s investigation into forty-year-old secrets expose truths that explode in new violence?