Quote: It is unfortunate when you are a new judge and the chief of police finds a dead man at your party. It is downright mortifying when the last words out of your mouth were, "Don't look behind that screen. You know good and well I put it there to hide things I don't want seen."

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At the end of the second book in this series, But Why Shoot the Magistrate?, Judge Joe Riddley Yarbrough has gotten shot and his wife, amateur sleuth MacLaren Yarbrough, has been appointed judge in his place. In this new book, Mac is having to learn the magistrate business, run Yarbrough's Feed, Seed and Nursery without Joe Riddley's help, and cope with Joe Riddley himself. He is still mildly brain damaged from the bullet that creased his skull. Between going to work, driving to the jail to hold hearings, and taking Joe Riddley to physical and occupational therapy, Mac doesn't have time for murder.

      But on a warm afternoon in October she holds a "coming out" party to celebrate Joe Riddley's sixty-fifth birthday and his recent graduation from a wheelchair to a walker. She expects the 200 people who dot her lawn and rock on her front porch. She does NOT expect that polecat, Police Chief Charlie Muggins, to find a dead man behind a screen she set up to conceal all the junk mail that's accumulated in the past four months.

     "Poor Hiram, he was never a lovely sight or a pleasant person, but he should have lived longer. He sprawled like a child who's found a quiet corner after a day or hard, dirty play, and spread out for a desperately needed nap. The red Yarbrough's cap was the cleanest thing on him."

      That Yarbrough's cap is what makes Chief Muggins and even Sheriff Buster Gibbons wonder if Joe Riddley killed Hiram Blaine. Joe Riddley's mind is so confused he makes up tall tales and forgets if he's had his dinner. To save her husband, MacLaren has to find out: Who invited the dead man?