Convicted of the murder of a young mother in a 1970 trial that ended with his threat to seek revenge against the jurors, Danny Padgitt is paroled after nine years in prison and returns to the scene of the trial in Ford County, Mississippi.

A wealthy newspaper publisher achieves tremendous social and political power, but fails to overcome the loneliness which plagues him throughout his life.

1875. Kathryn Walsh arrives in tiny Calvada, a mining town nestled in the Sierra Nevadas. Banished from Boston by her wealthy stepfather, she has come to claim an inheritance from the uncle she never knew: a defunct newspaper office on a main street overflowing with brothels and saloons, and a seemingly worthless mine. Moved by the oppression of the local miners and their families, Kathryn decides to relaunch her uncle's newspaper-- and finds herself...