-The first of two spinoff stories from the Alianna Winter Mysteries- Tobias (Toby!) Smart isn't exactly your average fourteen-year-old. To be honest, his seventeen-year-old brother Tarquin Smart, or Quinne as he prefers to be called, isn't exactly average either. Both boys, as well as an unfortunate inbred skill for baking, have more brains and a sharper wit (and in Tarquin's case, a sharper tongue) than most adults they've ever met (other than perhaps their mother). But when a young child from the village is found dead, having been smashed on the head with a mirror, Toby and Tarquin finally get to start putting their skills to good use.

When her wealthy father dies, Sylvie Pace's surprise inheritance is only the clothes she can fit into her (using the word loosely) "car" and a remote Florida ranch she shares with Walt McGurk, cowboy. (Based on the author's feature film screenplay, which won Honorable Mention, 2001 Writer's Digest Writing Competition, Television/Movie Scripts, out of 19,500 entries.) These opposites do not attract. She's Palm Beach, he's Podunk Holler. She's haute couture, he's old jeans, sweaty tee-shirts, and stinky boots. She's Italian sports cars, he's American-made pickup trucks. She's determined to find a way back to her old way of life, he's only trying to make a living. He calls her The Pouty Princess. She has labeled him The Abominable Cowboy. He says she's unemployed, she says she's "at leisure." He's dating the owner of Clarice's Beauty World in Clewiston. She's dating a real-estate tycoon with homes in Miami and Palm Beach. She's pretty, okay, but that can't make up for all the aggravation she causes poor Walt. She knows her way around high society, sure, but around a real house without servants or a concierge, she doesn't know how to do anything. Some of her mistakes around the house-especially the ones involving electricity-nearly kill him. The worst thing for Walt about the death of Sylvie's father? Harry Pace isn't actually dead. He's moving in the shadows of his former business world, locating and retrieving assets stolen by his former partners. Walt's job? Keep Sylvie safely squirreled away, far from the nefarious activities of Harry and his unscrupulous associates, until Harry can exact his revenge. Things get really interesting the day EVERYBODY shows up at the Palm Beach Polo Club.