When Barry Price, an old high school friend, contacts Sam Willis with a desperate plea for help but later dies in the crash of a private plane, Sam and Andy Carpenter reach the terrifying realization that Sam was also intended to be a victim of the crash.

A young lawyer takes on the judge who is destroying her hometown--and ends up in jail herself. In picture-perfect Erva, Alabama, the most serious crimes are misdemeanors. Speeding tickets. Shoplifting. Contempt of court. Then why is the jail so crowded? And why are so few prisoners released? There's only one place to learn the truth behind these incriminating secrets. Sometimes the best education a lawyer can get is a short stretch of hard time.