Janet Markham Bennett is just starting to feel as if she’s getting used to her part-time job with her husband Edward’s top-secret government agency. Their next assignment is something a bit different, though. This time the agency is sending them to the Bahamas to spend a weekend on a private island. Instead of being given a specific job to do, they’re simply asked to keep their eyes open while they’re there.

In spite of the rather vague assignment, neither Janet nor Edward is expecting their host, Arthur Farnsley, to get murdered within hours of their arrival on the island. To Janet it seems as if there are far too many suspects but no clear motive.

Can Janet and Edward work out who killed Arthur? Does his death have anything to do with the reason they’ve been sent to Farntopia? And can Janet maintain her cover for the entire weekend, even though that means acting nasty and spoiled all the time?

Margaret Woods, Fenella’s niece, is back on the island, and she’s planning to stay this time. A late-night stroll on the promenade that leaves Fenella with a broken arm isn’t a great start to Margaret’s new beginning, though. When Fenella’s doctor, Rachel, asks for help in locating her missing boyfriend, Ben, Fenella tells her to call the police. Fenella’s neighbor’s aunt, Elaine, is more willing to help out, though. Elaine insists on accompanying Rachel to the missing man’s apartment to see if he may be simply avoiding Rachel.

No one is expecting to find a dead man on Ben’s kitchen floor. Rachel is relieved that the body isn’t Ben’s, but that just raises a lot of questions for the police to try to answer.

Can Fenella and her friends help the police find Ben? Can they work out the identity of the dead man and find out why he was in Ben’s apartment? And is it possible that Heather Bryant, the new reporter for the Isle of Man Times, is even more annoying than Dan Ross?