An adult video store owner and a farmer are killed on the same day in Bliss Creek, Kansas, a town so small and quiet it hasn’t seen a murder in ten years.

Melvin Walker is found shot to death in the parking lot of his business.

Peter Copeland dies on the floor of his barn, a pitchfork stuck in his gut.

Chief of Police Austin Miller has been in charge of Bliss Creek’s small police force for about six months after ten years in Kansas City’s homicide division. He knows murder.

That’s why he doesn’t believe the two crimes are unrelated, despite the disparate MOs.

What do a porn dealer and a farmer have in common? Answering that question becomes Roberta Simmons’s first assignment in her new job as a reporter forThe Chronicle. Roberta and Austin are on a collision course that will bring them together in a fight to stop a killer, save their children, and save their own lives.