Rose Gill Marchand, a paraplegic, brilliant botanist and co-owner, with her husband, of Eaglenest Gallery on Gabriola Island, finds the body of Roy Dempster, their gardener, sprawled dead on the gallery grounds. An RCMP investigation ensues, without immediate success. Upset by a suggestive gossipy article about the murder in the local paper, Roses husband, Artemus, calls on Noel Franklin, an ex-investigative reporter living in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, and asks him to find evidence that will eliminate the spreading rumours. Noel agrees to start looking into it and asks his long-time friend Kyra Rachel an insurance investigator from Bellingham, Washington, to assist him. As Noel and Kyras inquiry proceeds, they discover that islands like Gabriola hide secrets far more mysterious than murder, far more dangerous than gossip, as each investigator falls prey to the depravity of those they need to trust. Never Sleep With a Suspect on Gabriola Island is the first novel in George Szanto and Sandy Frances Duncans Islands Investigations International detective novel series.