Detective Gumdrop is nobody's hero. The washed-up clurichaun private investigator sleeps in his office, hasn't had a paying client in months, and barely escaped the last knife fight with his life. When celebrity activist Gingerbread offers him $150 a day—more money than he's seen in years—to investigate Prince Troylus Charming's shocking murder, he knows something's wrong. She doesn't want him to actually solve the case. She just wants a clurichaun detective visible enough to keep the corrupt Metropolitan Police from framing the first convenient suspect.

But Gumdrop has never been good at following orders.

Partnered with Detective Miriam McFadden—an idealistic rookie elf who's risking her career to work the case—Gumdrop discovers the murder is anything but random. The arrested suspect, a pixie-dust addict named Sugarplum, was there... but he doesn't remember doing it. In fact, he describes being controlled by "beautiful strings" that moved his body like a puppet.

The truth is darker than anyone imagined.