While getting ready to judge the baking contest at the local town fair, Hannah Swensen stumbles upon the dead body of a fellow judge, along with a smashed key lime pie.

It promises to be a busy week for Hanna Swensen. Not only is she whipping up treats for the chamber of commerce at the fair; she is also judging the banking contest, acting as a magician's assistant for her business partner's husband; trying to coach Moishe, her previously rapacious feline, to en his hunger strike, and performing her own private carnival act by juggling the demands of her mother and sisters.