In Lake Castor, a town in which the old mill has closed and all the jobs have vanished, the blame for a countywide murder spree lies at the feet of three people broken by life and their own choices: Calvin, a killer; London, a cook; and Rhonda, the woman who loves them both. Pulled together by lust, greed, ambition, and a deranged quest for notoriety, they cut a bloody trail through this Southern Gothic noir that adds a transgressive, chicken-fried twist to a story ripped straight from the pages of a true crime novel or an episode of Dateline NBC.

Every once in a while, literature offers us a story that champions the spirit of humanity.

This is not that story.