On the way to a lunch meeting of her local book discussion group, the Uppity Women, small-town Southern librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden is shocked and dismayed to find her sister-in-law, Poppy, lying bloody and dead right outside her own back door. Poppy had her flaws, certainly - she and her husband were having trouble staying faithful to each other - but she didn't deserve to be so brutally murdered." Investigating a case like this is never easy, of course, given the gossipy atmosphere of any small town, what with Poppy and her husband's extramarital affairs, the local police detective, who also happens to be a former boyfriend of Roe's, and his seemingly unresolved feelings of Poppy, and the need to protect Poppy's family. But Roe is also coping with a burgeoning romantic relationship as well as the sudden appearance of her teenaged half brother. All in all, it's a lot for one woman to have on her plate, even one as together as Roe.