Nothing ever happens in Maggody, Arkansas, population 755. Aside from handling the occasional barroom brawl or exploding still, Chief of Police Arly Hanks spends her days sipping coffee and squashing flies. She returned to Maggody two years ago, licking her wounds after a bad Manhattan divorce, and she fell backward into the role of sheriff. From Hizzoner the Moron—also known as Jim Bob Buchanon, the pettily corrupt mayor—to Ruby Bee Hanks—Arly's mother and the town's foremost gossip—the people of Maggody are all crazy in their own ways, and that craziness is about to turn deadly.