Driving south to Napoleon Corners, Georgia, private detective J. Pletcher has a simple assignment: Go to the Corners General Store and Cafe, ask for a mint daiquiri, and wait for information about his next case. On the way there, his car is hit by a cannonball on a rural back road - his introduction to a world of Civil War history, Southern manners, and murder. Pletcher learns that he and his partner, Raina Lambert, have been hired by the Johnstons, an eccentric, wealthy family whose oldest member believes he is a Confederate general. One of the General's grandsons has disappeared from the Johnston estate, and a man who had claimed to be a long-lost relative has turned up dead near Chickamauga. Pletcher and Lambert suspect that someone is trying to kill off the General's heirs. But as they investigate - each pretending to be visiting the town for different reasons - they realize the Johnstons aren't the only ones at risk. In a community that includes an order of monks who carry pistols, a self-described witch, and a ghostly brigade of Union soldiers who set fires in the middle of the night, quirkiness is hiding a deadly plot that puts even Yankee detectives in danger.