With a left leg shattered by a drug dealer's bullet, former Detroit homicide captain Ed McAvoy accepts a job as Police Chief of Peekamoose Heights, in New York's Catskills. He figures it will be semi-retirement, sort of like running a country club. After all, how much crime can there be? McAvoy soon discovers that his homicide skills will not atrophy from lack of use. Murder, as it turns out, is an equal-opportunity crime that not only resides in large bustling cities like Detroit, but in sleepy, little Catskill villages as well. In the sixth Ed McAvoy Mystery, the festive atmosphere of the annual Winter Carnival is shattered by an act of vandalism on a food truck during the first night of the week-long fair and accusations run rampant among rival vendors. But when the two-time National Champion is attacked and injured at the National Figure Skating pre-trials and one of the mobile chefs is found shot to death, McAvoy must get to the bottom of things quickly before the food-fight turns even deadlier.