Jessie Weston is an ex-con recently released from prison after serving two years for auto theft. He is welcomed back into his small California down by his best friend Dillion and his older brother, Paul. But Jessie is not warmly received by his old girlfriend Mary, whom is the daughter of the arrogant and corrupt sheriff, who was the reason why he locked Jessie up in the first place. When Dillion is murdered by two thugs looking him up for late payments, the sheriff and his MORE murderously corrupt deputy frame Jessie for it in order to organize a vigilante group to hunt him down. Jessie must go on the run, with Mary tagging along, to try to prove his innocence and kill all the bad guys out to kill him.

Nathan Walker is a young man living in Chicago Heights, Illinois, many miles south of downtown Chicago. He finds himself entwined every day in the lives of his neighbors. They're polite, friendly, down-to-earth people. But in any community, individuals have their own private passions that their neighbors will never know. Each has a dark secret, a disappointed dream, a fervent hope, a spirit-breaking fear. We accompany Nathan while he comes of age and observe with him as the layers fall away from this seemingly random array of ordinary people who, below their practiced, Christian surfaces, are extraordinarily human.