House-sitting while her own home is being remodeled, children’s book illustrator and sometime amateur sleuth Calista Jacobs is hard at work on her next book, a retelling of the clasic story the Emperor and the Nightingale. Serendipitously, her new Beacon Hill neighbor, Quintana "Queenie" Kingsly, cultivates bonsai, the perfect landscape for the fairy tale. Making sketches every day while Quintana works on her plants, Calista gets a peek at the narrow world of the Boston brahmins. And when Calista discovers the older woman’s murdered body, she feels compelled to investigate.
Drawn into the rarefied atmosphere of a society where women have names like Muffy and Babs, Calista encounters a world of wealth and privilege delicately preserved through the generations. Like so many of the families, the Kingsley clan appears placid and comfortable on the surface, and yet numbers in its midst several alcoholics, one suicide, and assorted failed relationshups. With the help of her teenage son Charley and Queenie’s colorful, debonair brother-in-law Rudy, Calista begins to peel back the layers hiding family secrets so dark that someone would kill to preserve them.