When Debra Price, an arts executive from California, accepts a job on the Gulf Coast of Florida she finds herself an outsider in the rural, tropical setting and a victim of a conspiracy. Hired to develop a cultural park, she unknowingly upsets a good ol' boy network of drug smuggling and a land scam. The men have secret plans for the park. The more successful Debra is, the more she encounters their resistance which soon escalates into violence. Innocent people are killed, and the tropical serenity of the Gulf Coast explodes into a battle between retirees, land developers, old Floridian families and state politicians. Debra learns that, like the smiles on alligators, charming Southern manners can hide dangerous thoughts. She also learns about love and personal bravery as she takes a stand that risks her life and exposes corruption that reaches Tallahassee, the state capital.