Max Effort never thought he'd find himself at The Dead Crow's sixth annual pickled onion festival, but serendipity is a peculiar thing, so here he stood. He didn't care, because his two best friends—Min his ex-wife, and Anxious the Terrier—were with him so life was sweet. With his camper in a nice corner of the pub's grounds and his outdoor kitchen set up, he couldn't have been happier.

When the pub's chef goes missing, Max reluctantly agrees to step in and save the day. Having vowed never to enter a commercial kitchen again, he soon regrets the decision, especially when the chef is found dead in a broom closet with a jar of pickled onions. With the pub landlord under pressure to keep the premises open, and the death seemingly natural causes, Max relaxes in the bar where a fun evening of festivities with the fiddler band turns into an after hours lock-in like no other.

Booze, music, way too many pickled onions, and another body means there's a murderer on the loose and a room full of suspects. Max begins to peel back the layers of this most puzzling of pickled problems. It might leave a sour taste in his mouth, but the stakes are high and the cost of failure lethal. As the team navigates a labyrinth of suspects as slippery as the pub floor, it becomes obvious the motive for the killings is wilder than anyone could have imagined.