Ellison Russell shed her philandering husband. She seems to make a bad habit of finding bodies, so her friend, Detective Anarchy Jones, is not surprised when she calls him to say she has found another body at The Gates of Hell, a local Halloween haunted house. But when he arrives, the body is gone. However, this clown died in Ellison's arms and there was another clown in the room as well. She recognizes the dead clown as a local boy who ran away several years ago after being in and out of rehab for his heroin addiction. Now Ellison must call on all her savvy to question her country club friends as well as the clown's widow and sleazy brother. Charming setting in 1970s Kansas City, along with a protagonist who is struggling to learn her own place in the world, without a husband or depending on another man.