Growing up in southwest Virginia, Harold Beaman was fascinated by the United States Penitentiary at Walker Mountain. The iconic structure was carved from a ridgeline following the Great Depression, and seen from the valley floor, it resembles a land-bound lighthouse. Tales of mayhem and murder fill its long history.

After landing a job as a correctional officer at Walker Mountain, Harold finds himself involved in an investigation to stop heroin flowing into the penitentiary and to identify the killer behind the smuggling before he strikes again.

Also caught up in the investigation is Gordon Lemley, a former U.S. Marine and the prison’s warehouse operations manager. Having escaped a childhood of abandonment and sexual abuse, Gordon’s past returns to haunt him when a new prisoner coerces him into becoming a mule for the heroin trade.

Inmate Bubble Murphy is haunted by his past as well—not the three men he murdered but the little girl he killed by accident. Twenty-five years into his forty-years-plus-life sentence, Bubble is seeking to confront his personal demons when he’s presented with the chance to play a pivotal role in the heroin case.

The three characters’ lives intertwine as each man negotiates the complex and turbulent relationships between the prison staff, the inmate population, and the unforgiving culture of the institution itself. Will they succumb to the pressures of life in a high-security federal prison, or will they survive Walker Mountain?