It's time for the annual Harvest Fair and Trick-or-Treating in Upper River Gulch, and the SCOURGEs help Annike McKinley plan the most enthusiastic festival their town has yet endured. But when the body of Hugh Cartwright, owner of Brandywine Distillery, is found in the town's tiny park dressed as a scarecrow with his head inside a giant jack-o'-lantern, Annike insists a murder was not one of the scheduled events.

Much to her dismay, Annike is finding it harder to resist Merit County's sheriff Owen Sarkisian. While Sarkisian wades through motives and clues and the chaos created by the town's proposed incorporation, Annike deals with pumpkin carving contests, hayrides, a kids' carnival and a haunted house that takes on a sinister twist. And always ready to lend a helping paw are two black cats and the adolescent bloodhound Boondoggle.

Then comes Halloween night when kids and adults alike parade in costume along the town's few streets. Only this time a murderer walks among them.