Retired New York City private school head Maggie Detweiler and her old friend, society matron Hope Babbin, are off on a weeklong vacation to Maine to attend a master cooking class at the picturesque Oquossoc Mountain Inn. But their quiet idyll is disrupted by the arrival at the inn of a boorish couple, Alexander and Lisa Antippas. Discord enters with the family, closely followed by disaster. When a suspicious late-night fire at the inn is brought under control, Alex's charred body is found in the ashes.