It s November and Maggy Thorsen, co-owner of the Wisconsin gourmet coffeehouse, Uncommon Grounds, is in South Florida at an annual crime-writers conference with her beau, local sheriff Jake Pavlik, who is due to speak as a forensics expert .
Maggy s pledge to behave solely as a tourist becomes trickier than she anticipated when the conference s opening night event turns out to be a re-enactment of Agatha Christie s classic, Murder on the Orient Express. As Maggy and Jake reluctantly set off on the night train to the Everglades to solve the crime, it s clear that, as in the original novel, nothing is quite what it seems. And amidst rumours of careers taken, manuscripts stolen and vows broken, it seems that in the Everglades as in life the predator all too often becomes the prey."