In the vein of Daniel Woodrell`s Winter`s Bone & the works of Ron Rash, a novel set in a rough-&-tumble Mississippi town where drugs, whiskey, guns, & the desire for revenge violently intersect For eleven years the clock has been ticking for Russell Gaines as he sat in Parchman penitentiary in the Mississippi Delta. His time now up, & believing his debt paid, he returns home only to discover that revenge lives & breathes all around. On the day of his release, a woman named Maben & her young daughter trudge along the side of the interstate under the punishing summer sun. Desperate & exhausted, the pair spend their last dollar on a motel room for the night, a night that ends with Maben running through the darkness holding a pistol, & a dead deputy sprawled across the road in the glow of his own headlights. With dawn, destinies collide, & Russell is forced to decide whose life he will save his own or that of the woman & child?