Maddie Sparks, senior amateur sleuth, sets aside her writing when her son, a defense attorney, is accused of murdering one of his clients, a high school friend and the woman the authorities believe murdered her estranged husband. Although Maddie knows her son is innocent, she also suspects he is hiding something. Before she can confront him, he disappears during the first snowstorm of the season. When he reappears, he is shocked to discover his house has been torched. He confesses he and the murdered woman had been seeing each other. Did the client kill her husband to be with Maddie's son? To make sense of the murders and the arson, Maddie takes a close look at her son's friends from high school. Do people change over time, or do they carry their past grievances into the present? In getting to know her son's friends, she finds that teenage passion can sometimes lead to murder. It's simply a matter of Maddie determining which friend is hiding a killer's face.