Iris Oakley, pregnant and still recovering from her husband’s murder, wants only to carry on as a keeper at Finley Memorial Zoo in Vancouver, Washington. But she is confronted with a terrifying situation: alone and with no elephant expertise, she must rescue her boss, Kevin Wallace, from being mauled by a zoo elephant. Though she gets him to safety, he dies of his injuries. No one understands why reliable old Damrey attacked the foreman, and as the zoo staff descends into anxiety and animosity, the welfare of the animals is threatened. Rattled coworkers nominate Iris to find out what’s going on. Despite the distraction of trying to construct her new life as a single mother, Iris investigates. She finds a surprising number of motives to kill the foreman, but Damrey, the elephant, doesn’t have one. Iris discovers that the elephant keepers are locked in a bitter feud, the new veterinarian is keeping secrets, and an old flame still hates Wallace. Meanwhile, animal-rights activists are picketing to have the zoo elephants sent to a sanctuary, a better option for them than even the improved exhibit that is on the drawing board. And why isn’t that exhibit under construction as planned? A new foreman shows up with alarming ideas, the police keep dropping by, and now animals are disappearing into thin air.

Zookeeper Iris Oakley is sent to a remote farm in Washington state to rescue animals found during a drug bust. While the marijuana-growing operation and the meth lab are the cops’ problem, the smuggling sideline is hers. Instead of pets, she finds exotic contraband: parrots and tortoises destined for sale to unscrupulous or unsuspecting collectors. The zoo’s facilities are full, and she ends up with two macaws shrieking in her basement.

An outraged Iris is determined to break the criminal pipeline that snatches rare animals from the wild and leaves them neglected in old barns. Then she discovers a woman who escaped the bust … dead. Iris has stumbled onto a violent crime, something far too dangerous for a widow with a young son. But it’s too late to untangle herself. Two brothers from the farm, both murder suspects, invade her home, demanding information she doesn’t have. Iris flees with her child, but soon her only option is to go on the offensive. However, people she counts on are not who they claim to be. Then a friend is shot during a break-in at the zoo and may not survive.

Hunting for the brothers, Iris sorts through baffling clues and discovers secrets old and new. Why steal an ordinary drinking glass? Why do the brothers think she knows where their father’s fortune is hidden? Could the noisy parrots be privy to some crucial information? She realizes a key piece of this puzzle is missing, but finding it means confronting a determined killer.

Iris Oakley, a young zookeeper at the Finley Memorial Zoo, hopes to reconcile with her newly sober husband, Rick. But when he’s found dead drunk—and dead—in the lion exhibit, a paralyzing mix of grief and anger keeps Iris from questioning the assumptions around his death. But Iris’ friends motivate her to prove that her husband could not have died the way it appears.

Meanwhile, Iris must also adjust to losing her beloved job as feline keeper and instead learn to be a bird keeper. The zoo’s veterinarian respects her skills, but the foreman and senior bird-keep seem to prefer that she get a job elsewhere. After Iris survives a series of near-fatal “accidents,” she begins to understand what really happened to Rick. But first Iris must survive to prove it.