Sheriff Winston Barnes of Oak Island NC has plenty of challenges. His wife has cancer. His daughter miscarried their grandchild, has left her husband, and returned home. A racist is running against him in the upcoming election—and winning. And an abandoned plane has been found at the airport beside the body of the son of a prominent black citizen.

Barnes tries to be a good and fair man, but his flaws are many. Town leaders, sensing he is in over his head with the case, call in the FBI.

This story is part about a crime, but mostly it is a story of small towns struggling to find their way in the modern world. The pace is measured, capturing the speed at which life moves along the marshes of the Carolina coast.