When Madelyn Rivers, Curator of Reptiles at the San Pablo Zoo, becomes the prime suspect in the murder of her lover, her friends hurl themselves into the investigation. They soon discover that a number of people-friends, members of the zoo community, and the victim-are not quite what they seem. Set against the background of the zoo, The Serpent's Tooth is the chronicle of the mostly ludicrous, but occasionally surprisingly successful, efforts of a group of amateurs to investigate a savage murder."