Polio disabled Cotton Lee's leg, but not her sexuality, not her mind, and not her ability to connect the murder of her friend Little Mary in 1972 to that of Bead Baker in 1932. Gone on Sunday is a literary mystery that follows the lives of the Baker family, their black servants, and the townspeople they knew in Homeville, Virginia. Alternating between 1972 and 1932, Cotton Lee's investigation into the murder of Bead Baker brings out secrets kept for decades. With suspects ranging from a housewife, to a cook, and even a rumored witch, Cotton Lee needs to find the solution to the first murder in order to know the history of the second.