Despite the taxpayer revolt, the Latouche Regional Library in the Columbia River Gorge is flourishing under Meg McLean's leadership, until someone kills a librarian and the bookmobile comes under attack.The 2008 election is over, and Meg McLean has finally passed a library levy. In spite of an economy in free-fall, Meg's personal and professional lives are thriving - although her lover, Undersheriff Rob Neill, keeps proposing marriage. Chief Madeline Thomas of the Klalos offers an inherited farmhouse for a branch library - but the farm was owned by a relative of Meg's rival and sworn enemy, library administrator Marybeth Jackman, who plans to contest the will. Disasters begin to strike: the farmhouse is vandalized, the chief's home is firebombed, and Jackman falls to her death. In an echo of her malice, the county's bookmobile is violently attacked by pro-censorship protestors. Meg and Rob must deal with religious zealotry, bullying, and troubled mother-daughter relationships to penetrate the morass of bad karma and a maze of crimes.