Gerry Coneybear has her hands full. Between her work as a cartoonist and children’s book author, raising one-year-old Dot with partner Doug, and caring for the 19 cats her late aunt left her–along with the rambling old house known as The Maples–life in the village of Lovering on the Ottawa River is anything but quiet. Add a busy social calendar, and Gerry is already stretched thin.

So what does she do? She signs up for a three-month, once-a-week art conservation internship in downtown Montreal. It’s chaotic, yes–but also invigorating. Gerry Finds purpose volunteering at a women’s shelter, strikes up a friendship with a homeless man, and starts to notice a troubling pattern of thefts–small and not-so-small–back home in Lovering.

Theft is one thing. But when a suspicious death rocks the village, Gerry and her faithful friend Prudence are once again pulled into a mystery with deadly consequences.