A women gives Emerson a unique and extremely valuable artifact complete with a supposed curse. Of course she'll end up dead. Peabody and family are on the hunt for the killer. Throw into the mix some "accidents" and a theft and you have the next cozy Peabody mystery. I glanced at other reviews and the low scores are from people who are starting out this series by reading this book. Don't blame the author if you don't understand the characters that she has taken 16 other books to bring to this point. The better writing is probably in the earlier books but now I read for the characters and when the books are finished I will truly miss them.