Remberton, a small Alabama town, is the setting for this 1970s story of class, change, divided love, death, honor and dishonor, and a lawyer's commitment to the law. A shocking chain of revelations is set in motion when tenant farmer's son Jesse Rooter comes back after thirty years, now a multi-millionaire. Embittered over having been treated by the town in his youth as a nobody, he is bent on revenge, but a strange kind of revenge. While there, he begins to suspect that the long-ago drowning of his hell-raising brother was not accidental. To investigate, he engages Noble Shepperson, the town's leading lawyer. Scandalous facts come to light, implicating prominent citizens. But even darker secrets emerge in their wake. Along the way, Noble Shepperson is torn by romantic entanglements with both a local divorcee and an English woman he met during World War II. In the end, Jesse's revenge and Noble's conflicted love are resolved with surprising twists.