After a hard life on a farm in northwestern Minnesota's Red River Valley, Doris Connor buries her philanderer husband and moves her century-old Sears and Roebuck farmhouse into the small Scandinavian community of Hallock, located on the edge of nowhere. She longs for a retirement heavy on solitude and serenity, but her plans are put on hold when her flamboyant sister and a ninety-year-old friend of the family move in. To further complicate matters, the local pharmacy is robbed, the suspect is murdered, and the sheriff believes Doris's two adult children of being complicit in the crimes. Doris realizes that a placid existence is possible only if she first proves her children's innocence. But can she find the killer among the folks in Hallock? And if she does, will the sheriff, an old flame but a new headache, believe her?