Jar of Pennies is based on the true story of a heinous murder in 1991 near Pineland in Southeast Texas. To protect the privacy of the families involved, the identities of the victims and the murderer have not been disclosed here.

A young newspaper editor, BoMac (short for Beaufort Sebastien Maclean), helps solve a murder by spotting a crucial piece of evidence, a jar of pennies stolen from one of the victims. Set in the brutal lumbering world of East Texas, the story explores how culture, attitudes, and ignorance can lead otherwise harmless humans into acts of depravity and hatred.

A major character is Charles Henniker, a Black retired Air Force colonel now teaching economics and history at the local high school. He and BoMac become friends, exercise together, and BoMac looks up to him as a father figure.

The villain, Jesse Grinder, comes from a good, hard-working family, but he goes bad after dropping out of school and rolling his pickup while drunk. From then on, he wanders from one menial job to the next, never thinking about the consequences of his behavior and just responding to circumstances.

His probable brain damage sends him into fits of murderous rage, mostly hidden from other people because of his isolation. A very large man with great strength from his hard life, Grinder murders three people with his bare hands but gets away with it until all the threads of suspicion pull a noose around his neck.

The novel is a tapestry of tragedy and humor, of terror and joy, and of life in the primeval forests of East Texas.