In the quirky town of Laurel, longtime partners Roon and Raud have settled into a comfortable retirement filled with community activism, morning coffee rituals, and affectionate bickering. Their lives were turn upside down when they took in Tristan, a young trans man rejected by his family, who's still proving himself to the world.
Just as they're adjusting to their new living arrangement, chaos erupts at Laurel's annual "Running of the Cats" festival-a bizarre local tradition where owners race alongside their feline companions. What should have been a day of quirky small-town fun turns deadly when Elara Voss, the event's frontrunner, is found dead under suspicious circumstances. The police quickly arrest Echo, a non-binary street musician whom Roon, Raud, and Tristan had just met at a local café.
The trio is convinced that Echo is innocent. With Echo behind bars and the police unwilling to look elsewhere, the trio take matters into their own hands.
Disguising themselves as members of the fictitious "Benevolent Order of Old Belles," they begin questioning everyone connected to Elara and the mysterious Laurel Reliquary-a historical artifact Elara had recently discovered. Their investigation leads them to a cast of suspicious characters: Blake Latham, a librarian; Marissa Langston, a museum curator; Professor Arthur Caldwell, an academic; and Lydia Harper, an antique shop owner. But in a small town where everyone knows everyone else's business, nothing is quite what it seems.
As they dig deeper, the trio discovers that everyone connected to Elara appears to be hiding something. Their amateur sleuthing takes them from the library to the museum to an antique shop filled with questionable artifacts, each stop revealing new layers to the mystery while raising more questions than answers.
Meanwhile, Tristan finds his own identity journey intertwined with the investigation. With Roon and Raud's encouragement, he attends a meeting at the Laurel Trans Wellness Coalition, where he finds a community that understands him in ways his biological family never did. This newfound confidence propels him to take increasingly active roles in their detective work, using his internet savvy to help uncover connections the others might miss.
With each new clue, the trio's bond strengthens. Roon and Raud, with their decades of activist experience and street smarts, provide wisdom and courage, while Tristan brings fresh perspectives and technological know-how. Together, they form an unlikely but effective detective team, navigating danger with a combination of determination, wit, and their own peculiar brand of chaos.
Officer Washington, the one sympathetic ear in the police department, warns them to be careful but quietly appreciates their persistence. As the evidence mounts and the suspects' stories begin to unravel, the trio finds themselves racing against time. The Reliquary's significance grows more mysterious and potentially more valuable than anyone initially suspected-valuable enough that someone might be willing to kill for it.
With Echo still languishing in jail and the real killer walking free, Roon, Raud, and Tristan must navigate small-town politics, academic rivalries, and their own limitations to expose the truth. Their investigation puts them directly in the path of danger as they inch closer to discovering not just who killed Elara, but why the Laurel Reliquary might be worth murdering for.
In this unconventional cozy mystery, three outsiders join forces to prove that justice has no age limit, family is what you make it, and sometimes the most unlikely detectives are the ones who see what everyone else misses.
Be sure to check out Book 1 in the series, Roon & Raud and the Case of the Missing Ex-Husband
