After a cold and cloudy March in quaint Tinker Cove, Maine, Lucy joins her four friends for their weekly breakfast at Jake's Donut Shack. To fight the doldrums and to honor Miss Tilley, the former
librarian, they decide to organize a townwide 90th birthday party for her. The anticipation of the party plus Lucy's resolve to lose weight, do something about her wrinkles and dye her hair to cover the newly discovered gray lift her spirits until she hears that respected lawyer Sherman Cobb has been found dead in his office.