A violent motorcycle gang turns up in Blacklin County.

Sheriff Dan Rhodes knows it's going to be a bad day when Bert Ramsey arrives at the jail with a neatly wrapped arm and lays it on Dan's desk.

Then Bert Ramsey is shot to death, and serious crime takes over. A tattoo on the body discloses that Ramsey was once a member of Los Muertos, a violent motorcycle gang from the city, and current members of the gang turn up in Blacklin County.

Rhodes doesn't have access to the high-tech detection methods of city police—and probably wouldn't use them if he had. Rhodes has to talk to people and sift the facts from the lies. If he is careful, he believes, and keeps it up, he'll usually get results.

Meanwhile, back at the jail, his employees are bristling about the new deputy, a highly qualified police officer. Plus his personal life has its own problems; does he or does he not want to marry Ivy Daniel?