Following the sudden death of his father, Lt. Commander Lane Goodling leaves the active Navy, which he loves, to help manage his family's complicated holdings in properties and money. When he takes on the renovation of the ancient family estate and farmstead in Pennsylvania's Amish county, he finds more than he expected. Friendship, loyalty, betrayal love, sex, a gorgeous, mercurial soprano, the rare American Chestnut tree, a plucky biologist, honest lawyers, dishonest lawyers, and the senseless murder of a good man.