It's spring 1913, and love is in bloom for Alice Tucker. Walter Kelley is handsome, popular, and wealthy. But Alice's mother, Alafair, sees that Walter has a weakness for the ladies - and they for him. Only a few months earlier, Walter's late wife Louise had been stabbed in the heart and her body disposed of in Cane Creek. The murderer was never caught.
The sheriff cleared Walter of the deed - he had an alibi - but Alafair is not so sure that he wasn't involved in some way. Something literally doesn't smell right.
With the help of her feisty mother-in-law, Sally McBride, Alafair sets out to prove to the headstrong Alice that Walter is not the paragon she thinks he is. Alafair soon uncovers such a tangle of lies, misdirection, and deceit that she begins to think that the whole town has been downright hornswoggled!
