The facts of what has just occurred are horrible: a blushing bride, newly wed to an eminent psychiatrist and just minutes from hearing her congratulatory toast, is found decapitated. Though investigators believe that a Mexican gardener killed her in a fit of jealous fury, the victim's mother is having none of it. Reluctantly drawn in, Dave Gurney is quickly buffeted by a series of revelations that transform the bizarrely monstrous into the monstrously bizarre.