After a grueling career as a New York City journalist rendered him cynical and sick of newspapers, Jack McMorrow thinks he's found a proper place to recharge--Kennebec, Maine. But what he finds is a small town with big problems. The bars are populated with the long-term unemployed, the river is polluted, and the downtown is crumbling. If that's not enough, as a reporter covering the courthouse, he is thrust into a messy situation in which a shoddy assistant prosecutor causes the death of a woman Jack has come to know. Though his intent was to escape such unseemly altercations, Jack jumps into the fray with a fervor, emerging with unexpected results.