Nothing reinforces Halloween as Chris Landrum's least favorite holiday more than when he and his friend Charles Fowler stumble across a dead body swinging on a gallows in a yard filled with haunting scenes. Not only do the two senior citizens find the body, but Charles decides it's up to them to learn who put the man there, a task Charles, a self-anointed private detective, is convinced the police will be unable to solve.

The job of the two Folly Beach residents is made more difficult by an overabundance of suspects including a woman whose year-round attire includes a witch hat and dark clothing, a wheelchair-bound curmudgeon, and a macaw carrying Halloween hater, and others. Add to that, more deaths are discovered, and in case there's any doubt they're tied to Halloween, the killer leaves messages?messages branded on leather and placed on the victim's bodies. Unless the two amateur detectives stop the killer, their bodies will be next to receive branded messages.