Joe Hardy has a new interest in chemistry, and her name is Yvonne Ziebarth. Having quit her graduate studies at the university, she's just signed on at Bayport High to teach, and she's made up of all the right elements to get a reaction out of Joe: She's young, she's cute...and she's the number one suspect in a murder.

Her former supervisor was killed by a deadly chemical, and all the evidence points to one conclusion: Yvonne Ziebarth deliberately mislabeled the poison in order to set her professor up. Convinced that she's the one being set up, the Hardys are doing some research of their own...and if they're not careful, the findings could prove fatal!