Prosperty, North Carolina, police chief Judd Wheeler investigates after the body of a young illegal Mexican girl is found along the banks of Six Mile Creek, an investigation that pits Wheeler against his closest childhood friend and ignites racial and class tensions in the community.

Police Chief Judd Wheeler investigates after an NFL draft pick, Steve Samples, is found dead in a house he rented from Wheeler's closest friend Kent Kramer.

Being police chief in tiny Prosperity‚ North Carolina‚ typically meant that Judd Wheeler mostly handed out traffic tickets and quelled the occasional domestic dispute. Being shot during a routine investigation changed all that. Within weeks of Wheeler's return to the job‚ a banker and his wife disappear‚ and the most hated man in town is brutally murdered. Compounding his troubles is the return of Wheeler's best childhood friend Sean "Shug" Burch‚ an ex-convict turned celebrity country-blues singer whom Wheeler helped put in prison for rape almost thirty years earlier‚ and who may be seeking revenge. Formerly a bucolic country paradise‚ Prosperity has become a hotbed of crime‚ and only Chief Judd Wheeler—with the assistance of an unexpected ally—can bring it back to order.