For her birthday bash, Elsie "Beanie" MacBean gets a scenic Lake Tahoe dinner cruise on the Dixie Queen with her daughter and friends. But the evening is disrupted by an arguing couple—a twenty-three-year-old trophy wife and her much older husband. When the wife falls overboard, Beanie's onto a mystery…and possibly, a murder.
No body is recovered, but the woman is presumed dead, and Beanie's reporter instincts jump into overdrive. Working on a story surrounding the search for Lake Tahoe's own "Tessie" sea monster with a famous paleontologist, Beanie and her loyal basset hound, Cruiser, get to spend time on the water. And she discovers a few shocking insights into the drama aboard the Dixie Queen. But her curiosity draws unwanted attention, and now someone very dangerous plans to make sure Beanie takes her story to a watery grave.