Kate Jasper, Marin County, California's own organically grown amateur sleuth, returns in this fifth mystery in the series. Kate's sweetie has finally moved his malevolent mother, Vesta, out of their house and into her own condo in Tea-Totally Dead. But Vesta uses her new home to host a family reunion for each and every member of her extended family. Attendance is compulsory, even for Kate. Vesta baits, insults, and slanders all the guests but her UFO-abductee roommate, Harmony, until after-dinner tea time. Vesta cannot interest anyone else in her private blend of herbal tea, which gives off the pungent bouquet of brewed sweat socks. Luckily for them, since the tea also has an extra infusion of poison that evening. By the following morning, Vesta is as dead as any affection her family might have held for her. And it is up to Kate to find the real fiend of the family.
