A cheating husband. His faithful wife. His exciting mistress. Two strong mothers. A talented reporter and the alluring woman who wants him. The scene is set for murder and astonishing repercussions in the timber country of southwest Alabama in 1959. John Ed Tomlinson is convicted of killing his wife, then he isn’t. Two more trials follow, which engulf all five remarkable women, two rival families, and vulnerable reporter Dan Anderson. One element overshadows everything—Jo Dell Tomlinson’s first burial place, an abandoned well, her body coated in slimy mud. No one will forgive that.