1966, Baltimore. Last year Madeline "Maddie" Schwartz was a happy, even pampered housewife. This year, she's bolted from her marriage of almost twenty years, determined to make good on her youthful ambitions to live a passionate, meaningful life. When she helps Baltimore police find a murdered girl, it leads to a job at the city's afternoon newspaper, the Star. This is Maddie's opportunity to make her name, and she has found just the story to do it: a missing woman whose body was discovered in the fountain of a city park lake. Cleo Sherwood was a young African-American woman who liked to have a good time. No one seems to know or care why she was killed except Maddie. Cleo's ghost, privy to Maddie's poking and prying, wants to be left alone.