Finally, Lilly Bennett's long-suffering mother can breathe a sigh of relief--and reap the rewards of her finely honed party-planning skills by throwing the wedding of the century! Lilly and her dashing suitor, Richard Jerome, are just a week from the altar. Except that where Lilly Bennett, Marshal of Bennett's Fort, Wyoming, and President of Bennett Security, her own private investigations firm, is concerned, that might as well be a lifetime.

And sure enough, it's at a pre-wedding party that the first shooting occurs. The victim is the hostess herself, Alma Rutherford Gilhooly--larger, louder, and brassier than life, but also richer-than-Croesus--who is found in her dressing room with a bullet in her head just moments after Lilly has left the room.  Suspects abound--from Alma's philandering husband, golf-pro-turned-businessman Wade Gilhooly, to charismatic televangelist Johnny Bourbon, to hunky white hunter Kennedy McGee, to Alma's own half-sister Mercedes, now president and CEO of Rutherford Oil, and Alma's chief rival in a bitter proxy fight. To muddy the waters--and give Lilly a bunch of pre-wedding headaches that have nothing at all to do with getting cold feet--each one of these suspicious characters seems to be sleeping in beds where they have no business being. So what's the motive--business or pleasure? It takes three more attempted murders and all of Lilly's investigative powers before the villain is caught, just in time for the wedding!

As always, Marne Davis Kellogg's character portraits are devastatingly on-target and deftly amusing, her mystery is scrupulously plotted, and her sense of place immaculately portrayed.