After moving in with her fiance, lawyer Hugh Glendinning, in Washington, D.C., antique dealer and sometime sleuth, Rei Shimura takes on the decoration of a trendy new Asian restaurant, Bento. Barred from reentering Japan, where her business was originally based, she hopes to plan her upcoming wedding and find a market for the art objects she's stored locally. All hell breaks loose when Rei's cousin Kendall Johnson disappears during the opening dinner at Bento, leaving Rei with Kendall's twin toddlers. Then Bento's hostess approaches Rei for help in locating her Japanese-born mother, a war bride who went missing from her Virginia home more than 30 years earlier. Finally, sweet Aunt Norie arrives from Japan to help with the wedding preparations and ever-dependable Hugh makes himself scarce for propriety's sake. Crosscultural misunderstandings and prejudices, plus behind-the-scenes machinations, add to an already volatile mix.