When a young mother is brutally raped and murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family in the small town of Clanton, Mississippi, 23 year-old college dropout Willie Traynor manages to save his nearly bankrupt newspaper by reporting all of the gruesome details. Danny Padgitt's trial comes to a startling and dramatic end when the defendant threatens revenge against the jurors if they convict him. Nine years after being sentenced to life by that same jury, Padgitt is released on parole, returns to Ford County, and the retribution begins. This tight legal thriller is also a portrait of a small town dealing with the effects of the Vietnam War, racial tensions, and political protest on the way of life they are struggling to preserve.