Since her previous adventures, Madeline and her husband have moved to the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts in preparation for a job her husband was offered.

When the job falls through, Madeline steps in and takes a job as a teacher at the prestigious Santangelo Academy.

The Santangelo Academy is a boarding school for the troubled, and often juvenile delinquent, children of the rich and famous.

David Santangelo is the headmaster, an egomaniac, given to wearing a red cape. He has rather unusual ways of handling both the students and the staff.

Madeline bonds with several of the students and attempts to stand up for both them and herself. She soon discovers that the staff would rather turn on each other than suffer the wrath of headmaster Santangelo.

When two young students confide a serious secret to Madeline she agrees to help keep their secret for a short while so that they may try to resolve the problem themselves.

Both students are sent to "the farm," a form of punishment that is really just an excuse for Santangelo to obtain free child labor. Soon after their arrival at the farm both students are found dead.

Their deaths are attributed to poisoned punch, punch that Madeline helped prepare to celebrate one of the student's birthday.

Madeline is poisoned herself and deathly sick but she is arrested and charged with the heinous crime. She must discover who the real poisoner is and what the school’s darker secrets really are or go to prison for the murder of the very students she was trying to help.

I read both of Cornelia books within a week of each other. What a great new talent has emerged. I had been reading raves for her work and now I know why and can add my own to the growing list.