Samantha Shade has been hired to find out if there is something more than rats and feral cats haunting the crumbling San Rafael Mission, home of Father Rodriguez's impoverished flock. But soon, the donut-addicted rookie private investigator is sidetracked by a series of murders occurring within the parish — and by the bookish, yet attractive, police detective leading the investigation.

Several young men are found executed in the same gruesome manner — and each is discovered with a marigold between his lips. The clues all seem to lead to someone at the San Rafael Mission. Who could be responsible? Soon Samantha comes all too close to the answer as she is led through the crypts below San Rafael's cemetery on a journey that could only end on the Day of the Dead.