At a frozen lakeside crime scene, a corpse carries an accusatory note: “If anything happens to me, arrest Brendan Holmes.”

Mysteries trail Brendan Holmes, Margaret Marple, and Auguste Poe wherever they go. At a remote lodge in upstate New York, the embattled private investigators have taken refuge from the assailant who bombed their sleek city headquarters.

When the discovery of a body in the lake puts the detectives back in the headlines and under suspicion, the elusive killer issues his despicable orders: stop solving crimes―and start committing them.