"Wheatfield, Minnesota: a metropolis of six hundred souls and change, for which the word "moribund" might have been invented. Nothing ever happened there and nothing ever would--until the mayor of sorts (campaign slogan: "I'll Do What I Can") and his precocious teenage buddy come up with a scheme to put Wheatfield on the map. Should something dramatic occur--say, that the apparition of the Virgin Mary miraculously appeared at the local Catholic Church--the...

"Virgil knows the town of Trippton, Minnesota, a little too well. A few years back, he investigated the corrupt -- and as it turned out, homicidal -- local school board, and now the town's back in view with more alarming news: A woman's been found dead, frozen in a block of ice. There's a possibility that it might be connected to a high school class of twenty years ago that has a mid-winter reunion coming up, and so, wrapping his coat a little tighter,...

Carol, a college-bred girl, marries a small town doctor. She tries to uplift the natives of the small town.