Failure analyst Owen Allison is called home to West Virginia. His mother is convinced that a skeleton unearthed by a construction crew belongs to Owen's father, believed drowned decades ago. Owen's brother George, a highway commissioner, is battling alcohol, a bureaucratic boss and environmentalists determined to stop highway expansion. When a protestor is murdered, George is the prime suspect. Owen investigates mysteries in the state's past and his own family history to save his brother.