Farm foreclosures and protests rock southern Minnesota in 1984 when newspaperman Boston Meade learns his summer intern lies dead in a ravine. He believes the intern was murdered to protect whoever killed the Minneapolis detective whose bones he found at a derelict farmhouse. But key evidence is missing. The town's leaders were hostile to the research, including Boston's brother, the Alton County sheriff. When he dismisses the detective's death as a motive, Boston takes up the intern's research. He works alone except for Ginger O'Meara, the editor he just hired, but her memories of his old betrayals make her loyalty tenuous. Chasing a killer, they uncover a criminal web that touches everyone in town. And while they are running for their lives, they are compelled to face the betrayals that separated them.