Folk-art expert Benni Harper is thrilled to be back in Sugartree, Arkansas, with her friend Elvira, who's this close to getting engaged to Benni's cousin. But Benni's got a bad feeling that she just can't shake, and soon she knows why. Racism has come to Sugartree and it's rearing its ugly head as the merger of two churches with racially mixed congregations comes under fire, and the first black woman to run for mayor faces opposition from a gang of white supremacists. And when one of the supremacists gets himself killed, Benni gets snagged by a murder mystery, unraveling clues that form a very shocking pattern.