Sabrina Dunsweeney, who has a tendency toward hypochondria and very bad cooking, has traveled to tiny, isolated Comico Island to recover from a cancer scare and the sudden loss of her mother. She soon meets Lima Lowry, the tallest tale-teller on the island. He tells her all about the pirate Walk-the-Plank Wrightly, who died two hundred years ago and who has recently made a cameo reappearance in Sabrina's rose garden.
Lima invites her to a campaign fund-raising tea party at the prestigious Tittletott House, where Sabrina is surprised to find the stoic islanders clutching monstrous neon teapots as they begin a mass stampede toward the lone bathroom, spurred on by an unexpected ingredient in the chocolate scones. It seems someone is determined to ruin Brad Tittletott's campaign for the most coveted title on the island: president of the sanitary commission. Everyone is sure it's the crazy Wrightlys, who have hated the Tittletotts for centuries.
Then Sabrina finds the ghost-now truly dead-in her rose garden and is soon drawn into a maze of deadly island intrigue....