Preparing a midwinter's feast for all hundred residents of the little Yorkshire village of Scrafton Busk is exactly the kind of challenge Prudence Bulstrode adores. A chance to show off her braised-neck of Moorland mutton, Wensleydale tart - and, of course, her famous figgy pudding - is just the thing to shake off the winter blues.

But on the night of the feast, local vagabond Terry Chandler is found dead - his body entombed in the pristine snowman standing pride of place on the village green. Who could have wanted Chandler dead? Why would they stow his body in such strange circumstances? And what is the meaning of his last enigmatic message, directing his brother to Mystery Hills, a place of which no-one has ever heard?

Crime and cookery continue to collide as Prudence and her long-suffering sidekick, granddaughter Suki, get drawn into another mystifying murder . . .