Xana Bard comes home one muggy afternoon to find a murdered man in her back yard. Knowing that even with an airtight alibi she and anyone living with her will be a suspect, she warns her off-the-grid lover Thorne Ardall to stay away until the murderer is caught. When the police show her the corpse's identification, Xana is stunned to learn that the dead man is her long-lost father. The snag in that revelation? Her father died nine years ago. How will Xana unravel the mystery of her father's faked death and now actual murder? How will World War II, gold fever, and a road trip with DeLeon Davies at the wheel factor into solving the murder? And when will the insufferably hot weather ever cool down?