Career convict and con artist Ed Hubbard and his accomplice Willie Roberts, a young and attractive prostitute, set out to play a long game against the farmer Pleas Burns, who owned a spread on the Spring River in Arkansas. But Willie grows tired of waiting and pressures Hubbard to "fix the old man." Even with a backstory of multiple marriages, extramarital affairs, an incompetent judge, an extremely messy divorce, a death sentence, two jail breaks, incest, a connection to one of the most infamous criminal gangs of the 1930s, three murders, a terrible miscarriage of justice, and two sensational murder trials, the most fascinating part of the story is an amazing and heroic canine.