It is the winter holidays, and Madame de Medici, Chrissy's beloved grandmother, and sleuthing partner, has decided to spend a traditional Provencal Christmas en famille with her children and grandchildren and assorted guests in her villa in Grasse. She has a surprise for them: two medieval manuscripts which have been brought together for the first time in five centuries to celebrate the eight hundreth anniversary of Grasse's ancient cathedral. But her holiday plans are disrupted when the manuscripts are stolen and a body is found in the orchard. Chrisssy and her grandmother have only a week to solve the mystery and restore peace and order to Grasse and its denizens.