In their second novel, Gene Hackman and Daniel Lenihan bring to life the harsh plains and smouldering courtrooms of the Midwest: the small town of Vermilion, Illinois, on the brink of the Great Depression. Boyd Calvin is a troubled World War I veteran on the run from the law, suspected of murdering his estranged wife and her lover. Only a female reporter for the Chicago Tribune and the head of a sanitarium for veterans are not convinced of Boyd's guilt. Boyd joins forces with another wrongly accused man, an African-American, and the two begin to face their shadowed pasts while fighting against the odds of justice.