Bo Tully is the sheriff of Blight County, Idaho, where law enforcement is usually pretty mundane: tracking down truants running away from school, picking up country boys who've had a few too many beers. But Tully gets a little more than the country norm when an ex-con calls with the startling news that there's a corpse draped across one of his fences. Tully needed a birthday present for his Pap (the retired sheriff) anyway, so the two of them head out to investigate the murder. In a tone that's wise-cracking one minute and the next, well, still wise-cracking, Tully and Pap use their wiles to figure out what's happening in this little and suddenly not-so-dull town.