Ali Reed owns and operates Monarch Salon in small town Golden Peak, ID, it largely a family affair with her college student sister, Chelsea Bowden, doing most jobs in the salon in wanting to be self-sufficient to pay for her education, and their mother, Carol Bowden, working the reception desk. The salon is at one of its busiest times of the year coinciding with the annual Miss Golden Peak Beauty Pageant - Ali a former Miss Golden Peak herself - it organized with an iron fist for the past twenty years by Mitzi Stewart. Police Chief Fred Wright has long relied unofficially on Ali's insight to solve cases, both due to most people passing through the salon at one time or another and Ali being their confidante, and Ali having a special perception of people in general. Fred may have to rely on Ali again when a murder occurs in broad daylight on site at the event venue of someone associated to the pageant. The last murder that took place in town happened two years ago, that victim, Ali's hus