Reluctant private investigator, Tree McDowell, is pleased when her beau, Aaron B. Abraham, a volunteer at an area amateur theater, receives an invitation to a dress rehearsal party and is asked to bring Tree with him. The lavish party, hosted by a local patron of the arts, Greg Fontaine, is a prelude to the equally lavish theatrical production. But Fontaine's festivities are brought to a halt when one of the important cast members is killed on stage. The police make an arrest, but some of the members of the cast and crew disagree with their choice of villain. One of those members hires Tree to investigate. Her examination of the case leads Tree to believe that not all the people at the theater that night were who they seemed to be, and that more than one had reason to want the victim dead. With the help of a colleague in California and her friends: Hudson, the legally blind magazine vendor; Jack Griffin, her dependable fix-it man, and Aaron B. , Tree figures out the puzzle. In proper literary private detective style, Tree reenacts the crime and discloses the truth.