The newsman in Luke Blackburn shuns the spotlight when he and his old friend, now the county mayor in Key West, discover stranded Cuban refugees during a fishing outing turned tragic, but he is part of the story that goes out on the wire. When Corinne, his lover from many years ago, happens to read it and reaches out, the news she bears will disrupt his carefully orchestrated life and threatens to blow up his marriage. His wife, Maureen, lace-curtain Irish while he was from Appalachia, is a brilliant scholar who is also bipolar and fragile. Luke has never told her about his youthful passion or the infant that Corinne, barely out of her teenage years, gave up at birth when they split and he went to war. Maureen's illness has meant that she and Luke have foregone having children of their own. In Luke's mind, she cannot find out about Corinne or the child.

Meanwhile, in Miami, where Luke works as the managing editor at a newspaper struggling to survive in the digital era, his star investigative reporter is slowly piecing together a blockbuster story zeroing in on the corrupting influence of cartel money in south Florida. The evidence she has uncovered links a flashy real estate developer, a legacy of murky land dealings, and the stink of political corruption in Luke's own refuge, Key West.