Although it is autumn in the small English town of Bishop's Lacey, the chapel is decked with exotic flowers; Flavia de Luce's sister Ophelia is at last getting hitched, like a mule to a wagon. Flavia is not your normal 12-year-old girl; an expert on poisons, she has solved many mysteries that she had little choice but to turn professional. So Flavia and dependable Dogger, estate gardener and sounding board extraordinaire, set up shop at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, eager to serve—not so simple an endeavor with her odious little cousin, Undine, constantly underfoot. Little does she know that her tenth case (after The Grave's a Fine and Private Place) will be extremely close to home, beginning with an unwelcome discovery in Ophelia's wedding cake: a human finger.