Fairy Tale Fatal Mystery

After being fired from her latest variety hall engagement, Ophelia acts her way into a lady's maid position for a crass American millionaire. But when her new job whisks her off to a foreboding castle straight out of a Grimm tale, she begins to wonder if her fast-talking ways might have been too hasty. The vast grounds contain the suspected remains of Snow White's cottage, along with a disturbing dwarf skeleton. And when her millionaire boss turns up dead - poisoned by an apple - the fantastic setting turns into a once upon a crime scene.

Variety hall actress Ophelia Flax's plan to reunite her friend, Prue, with her estranged - and allegedly wealthy - mother, Henrietta, is met with a grim surprise. Not only is the marquise's Paris mansion a mouse-infested ruin, but Henrietta has inexplicably vanished, leaving behind an evasive husband, two sinister stepsisters, and a bullet-riddled corpse in the pumpkin patch decked out in a ball gown and one glass slipper - a corpse that also happens to be a dead ringer for Prue.

Variety hall actress Ophelia Flax knows how to win over an audience. That's why she's accepted the marriage proposal of the brutish Comte de Griffe to nettle her occasional investigative partner - and romantic sparring partner - the pompous if dashing Professor Penrose. But with his boorish table manners, wild mane of hair, and habit of prowling away the wee hours, the comte has shredded Ophelia's last nerve. She intends to disengage from her feral fiancé at his winter hunting party.