Most towns have their secrets. In the 1930s, Port St. Joe has more than its share. Old Doc Berber, Port St. Joe's only general practitioner, thought he knew all the secrets of the sleepy town in Florida's panhandle. But a grisly murder out at the Cape San Blas Lighthouse drags him into a series of intrigues that even he can't diagnose.

Fortunately, the wise old doctor has an even wiser housekeeper, the industrious Jewel Jackson, who has a magic touch in the kitchen and an old Southern saying for every situation—and has tabs on everything that's going on in town through the furtive black-folks' grapevine.

But the old doctor loses his good sense when he meets young Sally Martin, the dead man's widow. In spite of himself, Doc Berber is drawn into a dangerous search for the killer that leads him into a sinister tangle of deceit, corruption, and scandalous secrets. He's forced into an agonizing struggle, not just with the murderer, but with his own conscience as well.