Miranda Rannie Bookman–43, divorced mother of two, with a recent love life consisting of a long string of embarrassingly brief encounters–is beginning to feel like a dangling participle: connected to nothing. Her career as a copyeditor is down the toilet (she makes one little slip–a missing l from the last word in the title of the Nancy Drew classic The Secret of the Old Clock–and suddenly she’s Publishing Enemy #1!), so she’s been forced to take any gig she can get. And that means giving tours at the Chapel School, the ultra-exclusive, ultra-expensive, private academy that her children attend. Certainly not the most interesting of employments … at least until someone stumbles across the dead body of the Director of College Admissions.

Investigating a murder was never in her job description, but with her soon-to-be-college-bound boy Nate a prime suspect, Rannie has little choice. Besides, who better to dot all the is and cross all the ts than a self-proclaimed language cop? Her diligence might even lead her to a brand-new love. Or to a killer. Or to another corpse–hopefully not her own.