Lyndon B. Johnson is President, "Beatlemania " is in overdrive, and gasoline is 30 cents a gallon when Ned Parker retires as constable in Center Springs, Texas. But his plan to live a quiet life as a cotton farmer is soon torpedoed by a multi-state killing spree that sets northeast Texas on fire.

The cinematic characters have substance and style. They walk off the page and talk Texas. --The Dallas Morning News

Constable Ned Parker's retirement is cut short when Center Springs, Texas, becomes the latest stop for a murderer who has already hit Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma on his deadly spree. A dead man hooked to fishing lines in the river draws Ned into the investigation to back up his nephew Cody, the new Constable and Vietnam vet. Cody and Deputy John Washington, the law south of the tracks, follow a lead from their small community to the long abandoned Cotton Exchange warehouse in Chisum. The building is a hoarder's paradise: each floor is stuffed to the ceiling with garbage, furniture, books, tools, tires, rats, and filth. But this maze of junk is also host to booby-traps, shafts, and bales. Was this lair built out of desperation or designed to torture and kill anyone trying to capture the elusive killer? Despite Ned's warnings, Cody dives into the building where he confronts both his own demons and a killer intent on destruction....