"When the body of a prospective client is discovered in her burned-out home, declutterer Ellen Curtis is drawn into a baffling investigation where nothing is as it first appears"--

"Declutterer Ellen Curtis has been working to bring order into the life of Cedric Waites, a recluse in his eighties who hasn't left his house or let anyone inside it since his wife died. On one of her regular visits, Ellen finds the old man dead. Sad but, given his age, perhaps not unexpected. Nothing to get worked up about... until the police raise the suspicion that Cedric might have been poisoned! The cause seems be something he ate, and as Ellen...

The author explores the hoarding phenomenon as reflected by such cultural examples as Hoarders and The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up while sharing the personal story of how she organized a single room in her house that had been overtaken by psychological clutter.