It's the dead season in Leavenworth, Washington. The throngs of Oktoberfest crowds have headed home, and the charming Bavarian streets are quiet and calm - momentarily. Villagers use the reprieve to drink in the crisp fall mountain air and prepare for the upcoming winter light festival. Soon the town will be aglow with thousands of twinkling lights. Brewer Sloan Krause and her partner in crime Garrett Strong are using the slowdown to stock up on a new line of their signature craft beers at Nitro. The small brewery is alive with delicious scents and bubbling batches of brew. Sloan loves the creativity and lowkey atmosphere at Nitro, which is soon threatened by the incumbent city councilmember Kristopher Cooper. Kristopher is running for re-election on a platform of making Leavenworth dry - a sure recipe for economic disaster. So when Kristopher turns up dead days before election night, Sloan quickly realises that his murder isn't the work of a stranger. Every business owner in town had a motive to kill him, including none other than April Ablin, Leavenworth's self-described ambassador of all things German. Sloan finds herself defending April and trying to sleuth out a killer amongst a group of familiar faces.