Pillar of the community, retired schoolteacher Mary McGill has a finger in every pie, a place on every committee. Everything Mary organizes runs smoothly,-apart, that is, from the town's traditional Christma pageant. For the festivities are rudely interrupted by the discovery of a bloodstained corpse lying in the mangert. Cowering beside the body is a small black-and-white puppy.

Two local children report seeing a shadowy figure fleeing from the scene-but there are no clues as to the murderer's identity. If Mary could ony find out what the pupy was doing there, she would be one step closer to finding the killer. As someone who knows nothing about dogs, purbred or otherwise, Mary had better learn, and fast, before she and the children become the next victims.