Noah Hollister could've had a cushiony job at Hollister Steel and a mansion overlooking Birmingham, but he lives like a hermit in the city's Southside. He doesn't own a television or a phone. Instead of driving, he bikes. After how they treated his mother, he hadn't spoken to his family in three years. Then his aunt finds him. Jules, her beautiful daughter, is missing. The police and two private detectives have found nothing. Noah's aunt treated his mother worse than anyone, but he liked Jules, so he agrees to take a look. In her usual overblown way, his aunt sends a car, a driver named Walter, and Diane Rollins, a sharp-tongued lawyer who rubs Noah's nerves raw. They find clues that lead them into a shadow world of Alabama politics, where the possibility of death is all too real. Will they get out alive?