It's been a strange and unusual week in the normally peaceful mountain town of Palisades, West Virginia. One lucky coal miner wins a million dollar lotto. However, on the same night, one unlucky miner is found dying in the town's dump, a bullet in his head. Then scantly two days later, another murder. It seems former New York City police detective, Nate Davenport, the town's new police chief of barely two months, suddenly has a second, execution style killing on his hands. But unfortunately, already in his short term, Nate finds he's doing battle with Palisades's long-time mayor, Vince DiFerraro, over the decision to call in the state police to investigate these murders. To Nate's surprise, the state's investigator happens to be an attractive, mid-thirties state officer. Mostly business...however definitely all seductress. Will Lieutenant Alicia Tanner end up getting in his way? Perhaps. But for sure in no time at all she's certainly gotten into his head. Nate's tenured deputy, Lynette Echols. Lyn, a sweet but feisty divorcee, has recently endured a series of problems which include caring for her seriously ailing mother and two years before experiencing a loathsome assault at the hands of the boyfriend that left her battered and scarred. Nate himself has endured his share of misfortune having eight years before lost his wife and ten year old daughter in an auto accident. A man often overcome by episodes of immense sadness and grief, he finds himself racked almost daily with a myriad of self-defeating emotions. A sullen, lonely police officer making only a fraction of his former salary in a dying backwoods community, this might just be the low ebb of his life. But as he now throws all of his mettle into solving these murders, is his resolve what it should be, considering he's also allowed himself to develop feelings for the very two women who are helping him with the cases? And what about those other distractions...that menacing young hoodlum who"