The year-round residents of Moose County, 400 miles north of everywhere, are enlivening the postsummer doldrums with plans for a fall Great Food Explo--and with gossip about a mystery woman registered at the Pickax City Hotel. Philanthropist/journalist/amateur detective Jim "Quill" Qwilleran, with his two Siamese gourmand/sleuth cats Koko and Yum Yum, becomes involved not only in the cheese-tasting part (20 different varieties) but also in solving a bombing at the hotel and subsequent murder of one of the witnesses.