It's October in Maine. The air is crisp, the foliage
brilliant, and everyone in Tinker's Cove is preparing for
the annual Halloween festival. While Lucy Stone is
whipping up crateloads of orange-frosted cupcakes,
recycling tutus for her daughters' Halloween costumes,
helping her son with his pre-teen rebellion, and breast-
feeding her brand-new baby, an arsonist is loose in
Tinker's Cove.
Someone is systematically putting a torch
to the town's architectural treasures - the aging seaside
marvels that Lucy and her carpenter husband, Bill, are
dying to restore to their former glory. The discovery that
the latest fire has just claimed the life of the owner of
Tinker's Cove's oldest house turns arson into murder.
As
the local residents of Tinker's Cove work to transform a
dilapidated mansion into a haunted house for the All-
Ghouls festivities and the local lifestyle expert gives
classes in jack-o-lantern carving, the hunt for the
culprit heats up.
Suddenly, innocent mischief masks true
evil; every jack-o-lantern sports a menacing leer. As
trick-or-treat turns deadly, a little digging in all the
wrong places puts Lucy too close to the shocking truth
that could send all her best laid plans up in smoke. With
a little sleight-of-hand and a lot of warmth and wit,
Leslie Meier once again pulls an unexpected cache of
skeletons out of Tinker's Cove's cozy closets in a mystery
as clever and delightful as its indefatigable amateur
sleuth.