This graphic novel, set in a small oil town in 1920s Big Spring, Texas, follows the trials and tribulations of aspiring detective Sam Hill and family. One part crime and one part American history, in turns inspired by Jim Thompson's hardboiled fiction and Tommaso's history with his father, the book features a cast of characters made up of greedy oil barons, crooked lawmen, city-slick con men, broken-down detectives, drunken reprobates, and obsessive gamblers.