Take a trip that's a little bit Nancy Drew, a dash Cheech and Chong and, and just enough Streets of San Francisco to make you want to hop on a cable car. Lee Harding can't find happiness in the harsh east coast winters. A trip to her hometown of San Francisco is meant to lift her spirits. She stays with her sister Alice's home at the Twenty Alder compound, a tiny courtyard with five separate apartments. The residents are scurrying to prepare for their landlord Martha's birthday celebration. The courtyard is lit with strings of lights, the bar is ready and lanterns are being hung on the enormous oak trees. When Lee is in New Jersey, she does nothing but dream of moving back to San Francisco, but this trip is proving that you cannot go home again. There seems to be new buildings everywhere, and the funky city of her past is getting harder and harder to find. Bohemian Landlord Martha Byrne represents all that is loved about old San Francisco. When she is murdered in her apartment after her party, Lee is determined to figure out which of the tenants is responsible. The detective on the case is a started and pressed cop named Erik Healy. Lee's position as a guest in the compound gives her unfettered access to the politics that go on between the tenants at Twenty Alder Street. She shares her concerns with the detective and soon the two have formed a friendship that has a little too much heat. Lee is reading Hemingway's, A Moveable Feast and decides that the author died full of regret. She keeps this in mind as she toys with the idea of something further with Erik Healy. The Harding sisters distract themselves from the grim mood at the apartment house by touring their old haunts. The scars from their tragic childhood have left them with painful wounds, and they find lighthearted relief in weed and alcohol. It seems just about everyone in the complex has a motive for wanting Martha dead, but no one more than the hot headed Miles Alcazar. Just when Lee is sure the man is responsible, he turns up dead. Someone is taking out the residents one by one and she fears her sister Alice could be next. Death on Alder is a love letter to San Francisco, sisterhood and the myth of home.