Mitzi Kapture portrays a military investigator trying to convict an officer of killing his wife. Convinced the officer committed the crime but hindered by lack of physical evidence (including a body), she must interview military personnel who have differing views of the events and circumstances surrounding the murder.

Several players from different backgrounds try to cope with the pressures of playing football at a major university. Each deals with the pressure differently, some turn to drinking, others to drugs, and some to studying.

Paris Trout is a vile Southern bigot. He owns a store and is a loanshark. He often sues people, and so his lawyer, Harry Seagraves, eventually meets Paris' wife Hannah. A former schoolteacher, she made the mistake of her life when she married Paris, who brutalizes her. Soon Paris goes beyond the overgenerous bounds of what a man in his position can get away with even in the segregated South, leading to a spiral of perverse insanity.

Country singer Joe Hawkins must fight both drug addiction and his unscrupulous manager to get back on his feet.

Ex-slave and former Union soldier Gideon Jackson represents other ex-slaves at the constitutional convention, and is soon elected to the U.S. Senate despite opposition from white landowners, law enforcement and the KKK. He unites with sharecropper Abner Lait, who helps Jackson unite ex-slaves and white tenant farmers.