The golden age of cinema is dawning, and Santa Fe is in the grip of movie fever when director Luther Bishop arrives for the filming of his new cowboy flick. Maddie Vaughn-Alwin’s cousin, Gwen Astor, is in town with a bit part in the movie --- but Gwen finds herself caught in a whirlwind of mischief before shooting even begins. However, the plot only thickens when the detestable director is found hanging in his office. When it comes to light that Gwen was having a torrid affair with Luther, she gets pegged as the prime suspect, much to Maddie’s dismay. But Maddie knows that Luther had his fair share of enemies, and there’s no shortage of contenders.

Madeline Vaughn-Alwin’s picture-perfect life fades to gray when her childhood sweetheart perishes in the Great War. The aspiring painter leaves her wealthy New York family behind to travel across the country and start over in California, but instead lands in Santa Fe, New Mexico. To help out around her new adobe cottage, Maddie hires the Anayas, a local Native American family. But when the father is found murdered, the police brush off the death as just another inebriated man finding trouble. A shocked Maddie takes on the case herself and learns that the Anayas’ home life was not what it seemed. And just as she’s starting to see the bigger picture, the autopsy reveals that her suspects’ alibis don’t hold up.