Melissa Tyler, who had just inherited incredible wealth, came to the Harden Detective Agency claiming she needed protection from crank letters and any possible trouble involving her family. This was a vast understatement of the situation as Margot, the poised young woman from Harden's, learned when she returned with Melissa to a languorous South Carolina town.

In a town dominated by conservative old families, Mrs. Tyler's husband was unique. A former carnival knife thrower covered with tattoos, he presented a fantastic social problem. To make things more desperate, his daughter—on the verge of a concert debut —jilted one of the town's favorite sons...and showed marked interest in a handsome, somewhat sinister, newcomer.

The situation became literally deadly when the body of a murdered man was found in the driveway of the Tyler home—and what had been scandal grew into horror!