During the summer of 1995, rural Henderson County, Texas and the area surrounding the county seat of Athens is burning as the result of pasture and forest fires during a severe drought. In the midst of those blazes, the body of a man is found bound, gagged and burned in the bed of his pickup truck in a field near a 500-gallon gasoline storage tank. The discovery leads to a murder investigation by authorities and a reporter for the local newspaper into the convoluted events surrounding a murder-for-money scheme gone badly awry. Based on actual events, A Death in Texas is a fictionalized account of the murder case. It is rich in detail about the small town and surrounding county and the sometimes quirky inhabitants thereof.