Since his recent arrival, avant-garde artist Zeno Gorgias has been turning heads and attracting gawkers in the otherwise tame college town of Farberville Arkansas. Zeno's "interactive" artfeaturing an undressed woman lounging beside a coffin on his front yardis neither welcome by the community nor punishable by law. But as local bookseller and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy is about to find out, sometimes there's a dark side to one's freedom of artistic expression
Strange things keep happening to Zeno and his oeuvre. First, his estranged wife comes to town, demanding he be committed to a mental institution. Then Zeno's house mysteriously goes up in flames. And if that's not enough, a dead body is found inside of the infamous coffin. Now that Zeno has been arrested for murder, it's up to Claire to figure out what on earth is going on in Farbervillewhile the real killer remains on the loose.