Brown Wiggins, an inept assassin, has been summoned to the small, southern town of Rowan in north Louisiana to eliminate an unnamed target. His arrival in Rowan follows the end of the Korean War and coincides with the lives of thirteen-year-old Marley Bledsoe and her older sister, Jolene. Daughters of a share-cropper, the two eventually take different paths for their future. Though the sisters and Brown Wiggins never encounter one another directly, Rowan's secrets are revealed through their lives and the lives of those who reside in the community. Like other small towns in the deep South in the '50s, this one is on the brink of profound change.