With sass and wit, Deborah Knott, formerly a defense attorney in North Carolina's Colleton County, is putting herself firmly on the seat of power- a district judgeship. She's also making good on a campaign promise: helping to build houses for battered women. Here Deborah expects muscleaches, not the near-rape of a young woman and the murder of her attacker. And Deborah certainly never expects that her hammer- complete with her fingerprints- will become a murder weapon. No one suspects the judge for a minute, but Deborah does have reason to believe that someone else in her sprawling, brawling family may have defended Southern womanhood all too well- and that the twisted trail of a killer may lead all the way home.