In the summer of 1895, Woodruff Parmelee, son of a well-to-do farmer on Old Mission Peninsula, was tried for the murder of Julia Curtis, his pregnant girlfriend. On the day of the verdict, a large menacing crowd gathered in and around the courthouse demanding that justice be done. Parmelee's defense rested on his alibi. He claimed that he was clearing brush for a new road leading to the Peninsula's west bay off the shore of Lake Michigan while the body was found miles away on the east bay. At trial, Louis Parmelee, Woodruff's fifteen-year-old son, testified to support his father. These are the bare facts from which Lewis weaves his fictional version of this compelling true crime.