When Lucas, an elderly... [African American], is accused of murdering a white man, Charles, a 16-year-old white boy, works to save him from being lynched. charles gets the help he needs in his sleuthing from an old aristocratic lady and a young black boy. The trio visits the church graveyard at night to dig up the corpse of the supposed victim. The book can be read as a mystery and, on a deeper level, as a social commentary on the South.