In the quiet coastal village of Oakhaven, Mags Sterling knows that the most dangerous secrets are like fine cheese: they only get sharper with age. To her neighbors, she is a refined cheesemonger approaching forty who finds honesty in the terroir of dairy. But beneath her linen apron, Mags is a woman built on a foundation of soft lies-a former Manhattan "Cleaner" who spent a decade scrubbing digital footprints and making corporate problems disappear.
The rind of her new life begins to crack at the high-society wedding of the century. While Mags balances a precarious five-tier wedding cake made of premium Brie, she discovers that the Mother of the Bride has secretly signed away the town’s historic docks to Vane Industries in a gilded foreclosure. The celebration turns lethal when a corporate sentinel is found strangled in the wine cellar with a string of "industrial grade" synthetic pearls-a signature of the very luxury she used as a weapon.
Pinned between a corrupt police force and a cold-blooded "New Fixer" sent to replace her, Mags must navigate a treacherous landscape of land-grabs and "industrial grade" irony. From executing high-speed J-turns on rain-slicked marsh roads to infiltrating the Manor’s secret "Priest Hole," Mags races to recover the digital evidence that can dismantle an empire. With the help of her neon-pink-haired apprentice, Pip, the "Houdini of Fromage" must decide if she can save the town without liquidating her own future. The menu is set for a final, bloody course where the truth is the only thing that won’t melt under pressure.