Joe and Floyd join forces with Bobby Lincoln, a sharp, ambitious racketeer who runs a diversified group of illicit enterprises in the black community. The unlikely brethren cross racial lines and develop a scheme to capitalize on Joe’s influence as a judge.

Joe Peel, a charismatic attorney and city magistrate, intends to become Governor of Florida, regardless of who or what stands in his way. As he sets out on his journey towards the governor’s mansion, Joe enlists the aid of Floyd Holzapfel, a war hero from Oklahoma who has dabbled in criminality since he left the Army.

The overwhelmed, corrupt Palm Beach County Sheriff takes control of the crime scene investigation. Law enforcement agents from all over Florida join the search for the people responsible for Florida’s Crime of the Century. 

In the summer of 1955, Judge Curtis Chillingworth and his wife vanish from their beach house south of Palm Beach, Florida. Chillingworth had made hundreds of unsavory people very unhappy with his decisions in the courtroom during his thirty years on the bench.