On a certain day in spring, Miss Julia learns that the mayor of Abbotsville plans to tear down the historic courthouse and sell the site to developers; Helen Stroud's husband has absconded with investors' money; Mildred Allen's husband has disappeared after a car wreck; LuAnne Conover's husband has left hearth and home to "find himself"; and Emma Sue Ledbetter's husband is considering accepting a call to another church. Looks as though spring has blown into Abbotsville like a lion, not a lamb, and carried off all the clear-thinking people with it. Fortunately, Miss Julia is at her best in the midst of a storm. She consoles (more than she should have to, really), she observes (some might say <i>spies</i>), and she quickly enlists Etta Mae Wiggins in a plot to scare off the development money by exposing the town's many eccentric characters. Abbotsville has plenty of local color of the kind not usually listed in brochures for upscale condos: Tonya and her sex change, Miss Julia and her stint as a biker chick and a NASCAR fan, and the mysterious apparition on a church wall, just to name a few. Marriages, divorces, fraud charges, and reconciliations all play out against a backdrop of Miss Julia's struggle to save the historic courthouse, her own marriage, and her sanity. This time, Miss Julia scales new heights to get her prized treasure and finds herself in a position she never dreamed possible. -- Provided by publisher.