A poor young black man, winner of a $23 million lottery, is found dead in his bed with a pistol in his hand—clearly it's not an accident and apparently it's a suicide. But with all that money at stake, could he have been murdered? Detective lieutenant Joe Phillips teams up with bank trust officer Maryanne Larkin to investigate. Working together while falling in love, they discover a wholly unexpected answer! A bizarre crime reflects the ethnic pattern of a small southern town on the Gulf Coast shores of the Florida Panhandle.