Twelve-year-old Scarlett's wildly successful blog may lead to a television show, the Secret Cooking Club has new members, and she is going to bake her mother's wedding cake, but trouble is looming.

Putting all her eggs in one basket, Agatha Raisin gives up her successful PR firm, sells her London flat, and samples a taste of early retirement in the quiet village of Carsely. Bored, lonely and used to getting her way, she enters a local baking contest: Surely a blue ribbon for the best quiche will make her the toast of the town. But her recipe for social advancement sours when Judge Cummings-Browne not only snubs her entry-but falls over dead!...