Following a thirty year absence, Kenneth Forbes is summoned back to his home town, Grants Ferry, Vermont, to settle his recently deceased Aunt Fanny's estate. Still furious at his escape all those years ago, Fanny takes elaborate revenge through her will. Kenneth inherits her considerable holdings but with strict criteria and a challenge that risks everything if he fails. The alternative to failure or simply walking away, at least in Kenneth's mind, is even worse. Add the people Kenneth left behind when he ran away, the steady decay of the town itself, and what Kenneth views as provincial simplicity of the generation now in charge, and Kenneth finds himself soundly ensnared in Fanny's trap. Grants Ferry's history is long and peppered with local characters, often a touch eccentric, who create a pleasant mix of humor, cruelty, tenderness, and violence.