Nobody much liked Louis Boyer, and somebody hated him enough to murder him and leave his corpse lying on the floor of his auto body repair shop outside Corinth, Missouri. It is October 1920, and with the election only days away, Deputy Sheriff James Bolivar Buckner seems to be the only person in Highland County interested in finding out who the killer was. His investigation will force him to confront facts of life in small town Missouri that will shock and horrify him.

It might also get him killed.