It's 1953 and life is good at The Shady Boat and Leisure Club, the Sweetwater brothers' ancestral fish camp, dance hall, and beer joint on Ransom island. The little spit of land between Port Aransas and Corpus Christi offers day fishing for anglers, cold beer for the eccentric cast of Shady's regulars and Saturday night dances for any and all. Rupert Sweetwater and his brothers have carved out an idyllic little kingdom on the Texas Coast, and don't expect things to change. Why would they?

The biggest event in the island's history is coming up--an integrated dance featuring Duke Ellington. It's a daring idea for Fifties-era Texas, and not everyone is happy about it. The local sheriff is fuming, the Ku Klux Klan is rumbling, but all Rupert sees is a chance to host his musical idol.

Meanwhile, 200 miles up the Texas coast, sinful Galveston Island is running wide open. Gambling, women, illicit booze and numbers rackets--the "Free State of Galveston" has them all, thanks to the ruthless Ginestra brothers. But too much ain't enough, as they say, and the Ginestras are looking to expand.

Back on Ransom Island, a scared young stranger named Sally Rose materializes under the strangest of circumstances and finds an unlikely refuge with the Sweetwaters. The only trouble is, Sally Rose's last name is Ginestra, and, unwittingly, she draws Ransom Island and the Sweetwaters into the crosshairs of her lethal Galveston family.

Soon, getting blacks and whites dancing peacefully in the same room together is the least of the Sweetwaters' problems. Galveston's top mobster--Sally's brother--has Ransom Island in his sights. He wants his daughter back, and the Sweetwaters under his thumb. And God help anyone who gets in his way.

Suddenly life on sleepy little Ransom Island becomes crowded, complicated...and very, very dangerous.