Three weeks later, the town still has not recovered the girl’s body. In the offices of the Columbia (South Carolina) daily newspaper, The Messenger, Maggie Glenn, a twenty-something photojournalist, is offered the chance to go to Tamassee to cover what is rapidly becoming a tense and emotional confrontation between local environmentalists determined to protect the natural integrity of the river and the distraught (and wealthy) parents of the drowned child. The parents are desperate to recover the girl’s body from the river by using dynamite and erecting a temporary dam. Maggie grew up in the area, and the editor is certain that she will bring perspective to her assignment.

Maggie teams with Allen Hemphill, a veteran reporter in his late 30s once known for a high-profile career in which he covered a variety of hot spots around the globe, most notably a series of reports on the vicious civil wars in Rwanda. Those reports were shortlisted for a Pulitzer. Lately, however, Allen has been curiously willing to accept routine local assignments, “covering chitlin struts and peach festivals” (11). Allen and Maggie met casually at an office get-together a few weeks earlier, and Maggie was intrigued by the man.