A friendly stranger who walks into the West Jordan Inn one evening becomes the prime suspect in the murder of an old friend, whose body is discovered in the smoking remains of a derelict hotel. Sarah Scupper, the inn manager, calls her boyfriend, Tyler Mackenzie, an investigative journalist from New York City, to see if he can figure out who actually might be to blame. But what Tyler discovers, as he rides his mountain bike from West Jordan to Carlisle each day, is a story much bigger than a single case of arson and murder. At one time Carlisle was a bustling summer resort town full of grand hotels and eventually the setting for an alternative college. Over the past twenty years most of the turn-of-the-century buildings, now abandoned, have mysteriously burned down. Tyler manages to enlist the help of the town fire chief's wife and her winsome and seductive daughter in what becomes a dangerous adventure with unexpected twists and turns through history involving a cast of colorful rural Vermont characters.