Your hostess, Veronica Ashcroft, is one of those wealthy horsey types. She lives in one of the last of the great Southern mansions, a modest little affair on the order of Tara - or Georgia. Some unscrupulous carpetbagging realtors have started buying off several of the great estates, dividing the land into smaller lots and building little estates. In other words, there's an outbreak of suburbia in the area. They want Veronica's land.
Veronica wants Veronica's land and trouble is brewing.
But for now, all of this can be put aside until after the Halloween masqued ball, a local tradition for 110 years, is over. She has been strangled by a lariat, the kind that came with the cowboy outfit you rented. A silver bullet is also missing from your gunbelt. All you have is your reporter's notebook, a pen and, if you're lucky, a drink. You have 12 hours to prove you didn't do it.