Jake Morgan is running for a board of education in a backwater town, just for the fun of it. But nobody gets into politics just for fun of it any more than anyone gets into pig farming just for the smell of it. No one knows that better than his Chinese-American girlfriend. After all, she works for a US Senator. But Jake still harbors the quaint thoughts that a board of education has something to do with education and politics has something to do with serving the public. He's a newcomer to the county, a non-Christian who is scaring the bejesus out of the in-crowd and whose families have ruled Cassavora since oak trees were acorns. Then there's the problem of a dead football coach. Though caught between the bookends of local politics and justice in his investigation, Sheriff Sam Goddard is intent on getting some answers. Hey, this is Cassavora, an old county that is changing faster than you can say cul-de-sac. Goddard and Morgan are crisscrossing the landscape, one looking for villains and the other for votes. Welcome to Cassavora County. There are some squirrelly characters around here, and you're going to meet them all as this plot races from the uproarious to the profound and back again.