Riding a tide of success after helping his boyfriend, Lyle, save their neighborhood of Tinker Creek from predatory developers, reporter Manny Porter throws himself into his career and community activism. The last thing he expects is to discover the body of prominent research scientist Phillip Nikolaidis during a laboratory tour. Murder can strike anywhere, and all the evidence is pointing toward Tristan DeJesus, Manny's nineteen-year-old mentee.Manny only has the holiday season to overcome jealous colleagues, an angry corporation, and a skeptical publisher to discover who killed Nikolaidis before the judicial system condemns an innocent man to lethal injection.

Master mechanic Lyle James built a successful but lonely life in Tinker Creek after rescuing his dad's auto repair shop until an international development firm conspires with local officials to condemn the shop and steal his land.Jose "Manny" Porter has come home to take a reporting job at the South Georgia Record, a regional newspaper where his father is publisher and editor-in-chief. As the son of a driven Anglo father and Cuban exile mother, Manny knows all about how competing parental expectations can chill efforts to even find sex—much less love.After a night of passion, Lyle and Manny are thrown together in a fight to save Lyle's business. Their struggles may lead to more than either expected for their community and their lives.