Madeline Brimley recently inherited a bookstore in Enigma, Georgia, is embarking on her second career. Settling in, Madeline recruits her friend Gloria Coleman, to help her plant azaleas in the front yard of the old Victorian that houses the bookstore. Turning the soil, however, uncovers the body of one Beatrice Glassie, a troublesome woman who has been missing for the past six months. When her friend Gloria is arrested for the murder, Madeline is determined to prove her innocence and, as she quickly finds out, there aren't many people in town who hadn't wanted to kill Bea Glassie at one point or another. And the very expensive and rare first edition of a particular volume of GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES --- ordered by the victim and her sister is somehow tied to the grim death. Madeline plans to set a trap to catch the real murderer --- before she becomes the next victim.

Madeline Brimley left small town Georgia many years ago to go to college and pursue her dreams on the stage. But then she gets word that not only has her beloved, eccentric Aunt Rose passed, she's left Madeline her equally eccentric bookstore housed in an old Victorian mansion in the small college town of Enigma. When she arrives to claim The Old Juniper Bookstore and restart her life, Madeline is faced with unexpected challenges. The gazebo in the backyard is set ablaze, and a late-night caller threatens to burn the whole store down if she doesn't leave immediately. But Madeline ignores the threats and soldiers on. Until there's another fire and a murder in the store itself. Now with a cloud of suspicion falling over her, it's up to Madeline to untangle the skein of secrets and find the killer before she herself is the next victim.