The year is 2008 and Samantha Kofer’s career at a huge Wall Street law firm is on the fast track—until the recession hits and she gets downsized, furloughed, escorted out of the building. Samantha, though, is one of the “lucky” associates. She’s offered an opportunity to work at a legal aid clinic for one year without pay, after which there would be a slim chance that she’d get her old job back. In a matter of days Samantha moves from Manhattan to Brady, Virginia, population 2,200, in the heart of Appalachia, a part of the world she has only read about. Mattie Wyatt, lifelong Brady resident and head of the town’s legal aid clinic, is there to teach her how to “help real people with real problems.” For the first time in her career, Samantha prepares a lawsuit, sees the inside of an actual courtroom, gets scolded by a judge, and receives threats from locals who aren’t so thrilled to have a big-city lawyer in town. And she learns that Brady, like most small towns, harbors some big secrets. Her new job takes Samantha into the murky and dangerous world of coal mining, where laws are often broken, rules are ignored, regulations are flouted, communities are divided, and the land itself is under attack from Big Coal. Violence is always just around the corner, and within weeks Samantha finds herself engulfed in litigation that turns deadly.


2008 年莎蔓莎‧科弗在華爾街的大型法律事務所，事業蒸蒸日上。不料經濟衰退逼得法律事務所裁減人力，莎蔓莎被資遣、丟了工作。但她還算「幸運」，得以在法律援助諮詢所免費服務一年，也許未來有機會再回去法律事務所工作。為了這個新工作，短短幾天內莎曼莎便從曼哈頓搬到維吉尼亞的布雷迪。此處位於阿帕拉契山的中心，僅有 2200 名人口，她過去從不曾來過。麥提．亞特是布雷迪的居民，也是法律援助諮詢所的所長。他教莎蔓莎怎麼幫助「真正需要幫助的人，處理真正重要的問題」。這是莎蔓莎的職涯中第一次為訴訟做準備、看到法庭的實際運作、被法官責罵，也因為來自大城市而遭到布雷迪居民不友善的對待。莎蔓莎發現布雷迪就像其他小鎮一般，有著不為人知的內幕。法律援助諮詢所的工作，讓莎蔓莎掉進煤礦小鎮黑暗又危險的世界。這個地方罔顧法律、忽視法規、藐視制度、社區分裂，大煤礦公司正是壓迫小鎮的始作俑者，暴力事件總是接二連三地發生。才幾周的時間，她就發現自己已經捲入有致命危機的訴訟之中。