Writer Karen Thatcher lives in a tacky little stucco house with a yard full of dead cactus and a smoggy view of the Hollywood Freeway. She's broke, her last book flopped, her boyfriend dumped her, her only neighbor is a bad-tempered drug dealer, and she's almost out of Oreos.

And if that isn't enough, someone is leaving leaving gruesome little gifts on her doorstep.

No one takes Karen's story seriously, until homicide detective Hank Everett shows up and starts digging around in her dead rosebushes. The handsome Lieutenant quickly takes a serious interest in this very puzzling case, and an even more serious interest in the crime victim, herself---an interest that's decidedly mutual.

Ignoring Hank's warnings, Karen tries a little amateur sleuthing on her own, and stumbles onto some disturbing family secrets. She's drawn deeper and deeper and deeper into an intricate web of terror that's closer to home than she had ever imagined.

Fearing for her safety, Hank finally resorts to turning the woman he loves across his knee for a spanking he hopes she won't soon forget. But Karen isn't so easily dissuaded. She keeps digging (and running afoul of the no-nonsense Hank) until finally her curiosity and persistence achieves an outcome no one could have predicted.

And WHAT, Karen wonders, has become of all the FORMER tenants of her ugly little house?