In Lawrenceton, librarian Aurora Teagarden - Ro to her friends - and her best friend, newspaper reporter Sally Allison, are in Ro's yard one winter day when a body flies out of a single engine airplane and lands dead on the ground, only feet from them. The victim is Lawrenceton Chief of Police, Frederick Burns, who Ro saw only yesterday, when he asked of the whereabouts of Ro's boyfriend, business executive and ex-CIA Martin Bartell, to who he wanted to speak about some undisclosed issue which Captain Burns warned Ro, a real murders buff who has often insinuated herself in murder cases in town, to stay out of. Captain Burns is survived by his wife, Bess Burns, the sister of Ro's officious boss, Lillian Tibbett.