It's April 1st and young artist Gerry Coneybear, inheritor of her Aunt Maggie's big old house The Maples (and her aunt's twenty cats!), wishes her mountain of bills was a joke. She's just self-published her children's book The Cake-Jumping Cats of Dibble, and that cost money. Plus the valuable painting she was hoping to sell is missing from the auctioneers'. And on top of everything else, her kitten Jay is acting weird, keeping her up at night. It's almost as if the cat's possessed. At least Gerry's personal relationships are going well: with her boyfriend Doug, part-time house keeper Prudence, and the odd assortment of friends she's made over the year since she moved to Lovering, a tiny village by the Ottawa River. Things come to a head when Gerry's house is tagged while she's in it, her house is rammed by a car, and one of her relatives attacks another. Add in a suspicious death and you have another cozy Maples Mystery.