Teri Rogers Screenwriting Award

Summary of script: Ex-con Booker Short calls in an age-old favor and turns an entire community upside down in the process. Mercury Chapman, an elder statesman who was his grandfather’s commander in the army, sets Booker up with a caretaker job at a riverside hunting lodge. Here, Booker begins a tumultuous affair with Clarissa Sayers, the young daughter of a powerful judge, and an unlikely friendship with an embittered mentor, Stan Granger. When Clarissa’s body turns up in the Missouri river, Booker becomes the likely suspect… but justice will not be served until Booker helps expose some ancient and incendiary secrets.