When wealthy Seth Hubbard hangs himself from a sycamore tree and leaves his fortune to his black maid, Jake Brigance once again finds himself embroiled in a fiercely controversial trial -- a trial that will expose old racial tensions and force Ford County to confront its tortured history.

When Rachel Lane learns that she has inherited eleven billion dollars from her biological father, she wants nothing to do with the money, or her father's other children who insist that they be given the money they feel they deserve, even though the will states they are to get nothing.