Barney Starr rolls into a bucolic Oregon wine country town as a recently demoted newspaper reporter forbidden to write anything more interesting than a fluff piece on a local celebrity dessert diva. But when his car literally crashes into what looks suspiciously like a crime scene, his investigative journalist instincts kick into high gear. Soon he's obsessed with a peculiar barber he meets, a man who carries around a straight razor and a Beanie Baby plush toy--and hides a suspicious array of mounds and excavations in his backyard. Before Barney knows it, he's embroiled in the colorful lives of many local townspeople, embarked on a new romance, and investigating a mystery that goes far deeper than the mysterious holes in the barber's backyard.