It's the Lunar New Year, and fortunes are about to change.
Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle's Pike Place Market,
loves a good festival, especially one serving up tasty treats. So what
could be more fun than a food walk in the city's Chinatown-International
District, celebrating the Year of the Rabbit?
But when her friend Roxanne stumbles across a man's body in the Gold
Rush, a long-closed residential hotel, questions leap out. Who was he?
What was he doing in the dust-encrusted herbal pharmacy in the hotel's
basement? Why was the pharmacy closed up--and why are the owners so
reluctant to talk?
With each new discovery, Pepper finds herself asking new questions and
facing more brick walls.
Then questions arise about Roxanne and her relationship to Pepper's
boyfriend Nate, away fishing in Alaska. Between her worries and her
struggle to hire staff at the Spice Shop, Pepper has her hands and her
heart full. Still, she can't resist the lure of the Gold Rush and its
tangled history of secrets and lies stretching back nearly a century.
But the killer is on her tail, driven by hidden demons and desires. As
Pepper begins to expose the long-concealed truth, a bigger question
emerges: Can she uncover the secrets of the Gold Rush Hotel without
being pushed from the wok into the fire?
