Jewel Mae Cookie Orcutt is an eccentric matriarch whose tattered ante-bellum home in Holly Springs, Mississippi, is adorned with mementos of her deceased husband. Flouting convention, Cookie shares the manor with Willis Richland, a middle-aged black man with a penchant for catfish enchiladas, Wild Turkey Bourbon and Theo′s Bar. Cookie′s two estranged nieces Camille and Coral live across town in a modest home. Camille deplores Cookie′s indifference to social status, and Cookie simply can′t tolerate Camille′s pretensions. Cora′s daughter Emma repatriates to Holly Springs and becomes the love interest of Manny the local catfish supplier and Jason, the sheriff′s deputy. On the day before Easter, Camille rushes into Cookie′s house to collect a fruit bowl, an heirloom whose ownership is the subject of family dispute and finds Cookie dead upstairs. A murder investigation soon ensues and triggers the arrival of two criminologists from the neighboring town of Batesville. One of two, a suave investigator, Otis Tucker, soon encounter the liveliest un-murder mystery of his career. This surprising and often darkly comedic inquisition will unearth family secrets, unmask small town loyalties and rivalries and unravel the fate of Cookie′s fortune.