Music can be murder....
Oliver, Indiana. Quiet streets. Deep roots. Families and neighbors. Young widow Joan Spencer returns, wondering if anyone can really go home again. She finds few familiar faces, but from those old friends spring connections--and reminders of what long memories exist in small towns.
Actually Oliver is not so small. It has a busy college where Joan's son grows fascinated with biological research. A senior center, where she lands the director's job. An amateur orchestra where she settles into the viola section--and right next to an unpleasant oboist who drops from his chair during rehearsal. Rushed to the hospital, the man dies, if not to universal applause, then to a general sense of relief. A young Japanese violinist is puzzled: the victim displayed all the symptoms of fugu poisoning. The autopsy confirms he's been murdered.
Enter police lieutenant Fred Lundquist. Investigation determines more than one source for the poison, not necessarily the deadly puffer fish, and a wide circle of suspects. He and Joan gradually make connections until--not quite to crashing chords and drum rolls--she realizes they've looked at it all the wrong way round...