Maddy Sprowls is the head librarian of the Herald-Union and has been for the past thirty some years. In the newspaper business the library is often called the morgue and Maddy is known as the "Morgue Mama". Maddy is one birthday cake shy of seventy and has no intention of retiring anytime soon.

On a Saturday morning Maddy sees four elderly women getting out of a cab to shop at a garage sale and learns they do this each week from May through October. Maddy feels this would make a good human interest story and suggests it to the newspaper editor. Right after the story runs one of the four women, Violeta Bell, is found on a mat in the fitness room of her condo, shot three times in the chest.

Violeta Bell owned and operated Bellflower Antiques for three decades and claimed to be of Romanian royalty. Could she truly be royalty? And could that be why she was murdered just hours after this story was printed revealing her to be royalty? As "Morgue Mama" begins to delve into Violeta's past she finds that Violeta lied about just about everything but the question continues to haunt Maddy as to whether Violeta was killed because of her blood line or for some totally unrelated reason.