Charlie Sherman’s been accused of worse things than being stupid. His wife, in fact, kicked him out of the house for being a failure as both a writer and father, though that porn he inadvertently set as the desktop on his computer certainly didn’t help matters.

While at a diner trying to figure out exactly what his next step is Charlie meets a mysterious stranger known only as ‘Trouble.’ Despite that ominous moniker, Trouble actually hooks Charlie up with a job finishing the massive, jumbled manuscript a recently deceased local professor never quite completed.

As a bonus, Charlie can also live in the basement of the professor’s widow’s house while working on the project. Life may have handed Charlie lemons, but he’s found a way to make lemonade. Yeah, if only it was that easy.

First there’s the matter of the manuscript’s topic, the horrific events of 1912 in which the whites of Forsyth County, Georgia engaged in intimidation, arson, and lynching to drive the black population from their homes. Much of the resulting “vacant” property was subsequently seized by white families, one parcel of which is now worth nearly $20 million dollars in the highly upscale – and lily white – Forsyth. When in the course of working on the book Charlie discovers the rightful heir to that property things get seriously complicated, with Charlie put in the position of either walking away or opening an enormous can of worms.

There’s also the highly disturbing fact the contract Charlie signed regarding the book project seems to be changing on its own; he doesn’t remember there originally being a clause in there about the project being a success or he would forfeit his life, and he’s damn sure he signed in ink, not blood. What has Charlie gotten himself into? →