Miss Matilda Hayward has been assigned her first book review for the Women's Journal newspaper and she is very much enjoying Mr Linton Turner's novel, The Pyjama Girl Mystery, until it comes to life. When a young lady is found murdered and left on the church steps dressed only in blue satin pyjamas - just like in the plot of the novel - the author immediately comes under suspicion. But no one can identify the victim. Matilda's beau, Detective Thomas Ashdown, is on the case, and with his partner, Detective Harry Dart, they hire a talented mortician, Miss Phoebe Astin, to illustrate the deceased lady for identification purposes. After Matilda and her friend, Miss Georgina Urry, make Phoebe's acquaintance, the three ladies find themselves unwillingly caught in a battle of words and hearts between an author and a poet with deadly intent. There is secrecy, danger, and love afoot!