Description: In this tame, nonmysterious mystery, bucolic Pickax City, in Moose County ("400 miles north of everywhere") is first disrupted by vandalism, then by murder. When Harley Fitch, vice-president of the Pickax Bank, and his wife, Belle, are found shot to death, police chief Brodie, a bagpipe-playing Scotsman, thinks that vandals, from neighboring, low-class Chipmonk are responsible. After three of the suspects die in a car accident, the case is effectively closed. But Jim Qwilleran ("former journalist, now heir to the Klingenschoen fortunea big man about 50, with graying hair, bushy moustache and doleful expression") doesn't agree. Involved though he is in starting up a newspaper, juggling several platonic romances, redecorating his house and spoiling his Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum, he finds time to snoop around. He doesn't discover anything, except for the spotted pasts of the deceased.