A "do" in Jacksonville, Florida--among the right people--is a party where the bourbon flows, tuxes are required, and certain activities, like dropping dead, just aren't done. Unfortunately, at elegant Daphne L'Arken's do, someone commits the greatest social gaffe of all: murder. The police call it an accident, but Atlanta's premier amateur sleuth, Sheila Travis, feels certain that only homicide could have caused Daphne, the perfect hostess, to be so outré as to die at her own party.

Sheila came to Florida with Crispin Montgomery to meet his blue-blooded family. Now she suspects one of them might be a cold-blooded killer. But who would want the svelte wife of a prominent doctor dead? His discarded first wife? The disgruntled stepson? The mysterious old friend? Or the shadowy figure who has crashed the party? When another body turns up in the St. Johns River, Sheila finds herself knee-deep in hot water and face-to-face with the icy possibility of being the next victim.