Val Atwell, wife of a nearly-always-absent husband and mother of five, with two mares named Burt and Ernie, a golden retriever named George, twenty-five acres of rolling prairie in the heart of Highlands Ranch, Colorado, an old ranch house in need of much updating, and an Erma Bombeck sense of humor, finds her idyllic life shattered after the death of her photojournalist sister in a fiery automobile accident. Then, three years later as Val begins to pull her life back together, her daughter finds a roll of mud-caked film that was recovered from the crash site and tossed carelessly into a box that was later stashed in the basement. When the film is developed, Val's real nightmare begins. Pictures of what look like a fatal accident, or murder, appear on the prints. Val takes the prints to the police, who opt for the fatal accident explanation and make little effort to investigate. Church members and family alike, except for an elderly southern mentor, thwart Val's attempts to find out the truth about the incident and what it had to do with her sister's death. Not to be deterred, Val continues her investigation, but soon finds that her amateurish, pesky, not-so-subtle modus operandi launches her directly into the path of a killer, a killer who thinks nothing of another murder, Rocky Mountain style