Ruth Zook returns home to Holmes County, Ohio, carrying a heavy suitcase and a heavier heart. Coerced into becoming a drug mule, Ruth retaliates by destroying her illicit burden and pays for it with her life. When Fannie Helmuth confesses that she was similarly coerced, Sheriff Bruce Robertson realizes that the drug dealers' operation reaches all the way to Florida's Pinecraft Amish community. He immediately moves the investigation South, where more...

While helping to investigate a fatal accident involving an eighteen-wheeler and an Amish horse-and-buggy, Professor Michael Branden becomes suspicious about the so-called "accident" as he uncovers a gang of teenage Amish robbers, land swindles, a missing bank official, and murder.