Crime reporter Samantha Adams is working on a book called American Weird when her boyfriend, Harry Zack, persuades her to join him at a barbecue cookoff in Tupelo, Mississippi. As Harry puts it, the King’s birthplace “ought to be lousy with weird.” Besides, they’re driving there in a genuine pink Cadillac….

Also driving toward Tupelo is Mary Ann McClanahan, who more or less killed her worthless third husband, Carlin. She’s discovered Carlin was already married to a woman in Tupelo who’ll collect his life insurance—unless Mary Ann does something about it. Then an 18-wheeler driven by a novice Elvis impersonator blows Mary Ann off the road into a snake farm. Before you can say “Hound Dog,” Sam’s giving mouth-to-mouth to a barbecue contestant zapped by his own electric smoker. At the Elvis Memorial McDonald’s, Sam’s little dog has to be rescued by a Biker for Jesus. When someone takes a potshot at Sam and Harry’s host, who turns out to be the meanest man in town, and Lovie Rakestraw, a junior high classmate of Elvis, is found electrocuted in her whirlpool, things really start to cook….