Plot Summary

Librarian and member of Lawrenceton's Real Murders discussion club Aurora Teagarden - "Ro" to her friends and family - has acted as big sister to her cousin Phillip Pifer ever since he started attending Lawrenceton College. Her time with him is somewhat to take her mind off missing who was her serious boyfriend Martin Bartell, the two who broke up after he moved away to rejoin the CIA. Although Ro states she isn't ready to date again yet, her best friend, newspaper reporter Sally Allison, and her mother, realtor Aida Teagarden, believe otherwise. For Phillip's birthday, Ro and Aida invite him out to dinner along with his dorm roommate Josh Farrell and Josh's girlfriend Tammy Driscoll. When Ro goes looking for them after they miss dinner on what ended up being a lie told by Phillip, she discovers Tammy's dead body in the back alley behind the salon where she had a hair appointment, her death in a seeming hit and run. The police investigation is led by Detective Arthur Smith, once a Real Murders club member himself. With Phillip and Josh having gone missing, they become the initial suspects in Tammy's death, especially since colleagues report that Josh and Tammy were always arguing about Josh's possessiveness toward her. To protect family, Ro, along with fellow Real Murders members Sally and Jason Dell, try to find out what happened, much to Arthur's chagrin who just wants them to stay out of his way unless he needs them. Included among the amateur sleuths is Nick Miller, Tammy's Psychology professor and Ro's new neighbor, he who Aida and Sally see as Ro's potential first suitor post-Martin. Complicating the investigation is when Clayton Harrison also goes missing, he the son of Aida's longtime friends, wealthy Dan and Carolyn Harrison. Also a student at the college and someone Phillip used to associate with when they were kids whenever he came to town, Clayton is largely seen as a privileged and entitled rich kid. Clayton has gotten into one scrape after another, the latest being caught defacing a monument on campus donated by local businessman, Dale Murphy. Could Phillip, Josh and Clayton's disappearance be them running from the police for committing the crime of killing Tammy, or could they just be caught in the crossfire of who actually killed her?—Huggo