<DIV>"Gunshots on an autumn morning leave a beloved local couple dead and signal the start of a vicious battle over the future of Mason County, Virginia. A powerful development company has chosen this small community in the Blue Ridge Mountains as the site of a sprawling resort for the rich, and the local people are taking sides. The uproar, with the violence it spawns, is the first major problem Sheriff Tom Bridger faces since his election. His wife of a few months, veterinarian Rachel Goddard, makes his job more difficult by publicly opposing the resort. Many see the project as the cure for poverty and high unemployment in a dying community. Others, including Rachel, know the firm behind it is notorious for mistreatment of employees, and they’re alarmed by the prospect of the entire county becoming financially dependent on a predatory company. Rachel’s friend, horse breeder Joanna McKendrick, owns the most desirable land, and she’s fighting pressure to sell and make way for the development. When Joanna’s neighbors, a couple who also refuse to give up their farm, are gunned down outside their house, it appears supporters of the project will stop at nothing to push it through.Soon a small-scale civil war is raging in the county, with the violence escalating and people on both sides becoming targets. But the truth behind the attacks is far more twisted than it seems, and as Rachel and Tom struggle to hold their community together, they uncover the poisonous secrets buried beneath its bucolic surface."</div>