Art critic for a metropolitan daily, Bill Kouros is looking forward to reviewing the hot new exhibit, "Pop Goes the Easel," but is assigned instead to cover a murder - his hard-boiled city editor convincing him that he could provide a novel approach to crime reporting by reviewing the murder as he would abstract art. Kouros accepts the assignment only to discover the crime was committed in his home town, making him an unwitting insider as he rekindles a teenage romance, reunites with his mentor, the weekly newspaper editor, and embroils himself in the seamy underbelly of small-town life gone terribly wrong. His investigative reporting causes fear and retribution, and turns Kouros into an armchair detective as he searches for the secret meaning of the Fifth Slug.