A satirical novel with a serious critique of the destruction caused by modern corporate agriculture and large-scale meat production. Early one November, portraits of the Chief Executives of three major midwestern meat-producing corporations and the governor of Iowa go missing. These incidents seem relatively minor―until the dead bodies of the three CEOs are discovered in the hog lots and chicken factories that they own. The governor remains alive but terrified. He immediately orders the state department of criminal investigation to drop all other duties to protect him. The job of investigating the thefts and murders falls to the small, understaffed, sheriff’s department. Initial suspects―a disgruntled young biology professor who has resigned to protest the state university’s support of large-scale meat production, the widows of the deceased who seem a bit too delighted to be rid of their husbands, and an 80-year-old army veteran who is valiantly fighting the proliferation of CAFOs in her township―quickly produce alibis. The sheriff and his deputies are left with a single clue: an ancient pickup truck that belonged to Craven Snuggs, a fierce opponent of large-scale industrial agriculture, who died in a mysterious farm fire years earlier. The strange investigation takes a makeshift posse through the woods, prairies, and crop fields of Nachawinga County before bringing their case to its illogical conclusion.