In this novel of social drama, a casual murder in the small Georgia town of Cotton Point just after World War II, and the resulting court case, cleave open the ugly divisions of race and class. The man accused of shooting a black girl, a storekeeper named Paris Trout, has no great feeling of guilt, nor any fear that the system will fail to work his way. Trout becomes an embarrassment to the polite white society that prefers to hold itself high above such primitive prejudice. But the trial does not allow any avoidance of the stark reality of social and racial tensions.