When a shocked Robert discovers a group of gossipy old women snooping through other people's mail -- even threatening to destroy it! -- he knows something must be done. Perhaps he could hire the kindly train porter, who recently helped haul bags for a young widow and her newly arrived German grandfather, to sort through the mail in an orderly (and private) fashion? But when the porter is found dead, and a red swastika is found painted on the pretty widow's grandfather's shop window, Robert knows that something much deeper, and much darker, is happening in his sleepy little town.

Even back at Grace and Favor, where Lily and Robert live, things are falling apart. The Harbinger brothers -- Voorburg's favorite handymen, who've been hired to work on the mansion's grounds -- have just unearthed a very, very old skeleton -- right in the Brewsters' front yard! Could the two murders be related? It's up to Lily and Robert to find out the truth before their quiet community is torn apart by hatred, secrets, and a killer who may have set his sights on Grace and Favor. . . .