It's the Year of the Veteran and that means a lot to Camilla MacPhee's friend, Mrs. Violet Parnell. But Mrs. P. claims to have had a conversation with a dead man, which sets her on a journey to discover how that could be. Since she doesn't mention that she's leaving or where she's going, naturally this triggers a protectionist panic with Camilla and Alvin. Mrs. Parnell is well past eighty and, according to the emergency room doctors, it seems likely she's suffered a series of mini-strokes. Meanwhile, the extraordinarily patient Ray Deveau's been planning a romantic trip for Camilla and himself, but looks like that just fell off Camilla's radar. So it's a transatlantic trauma as Camilla doggedly tracks Mrs. Parnell through the hills of Italy in search of old secrets with deadly ramifications in the present. Will she find Mrs. P. before someone with good reason to silence her does? Will Ray Deveau quit trying to get together? Will Alvin redecorate Camilla's new digs? Will those sisters ever shut up? What a nightmare.