Barmaid Chrissy Bridges feels as though her life is beginning to parody a cringing country and western ballad. She's thirty-five years old, divorced, and struggling to raise a son in a hopeless town miles from anywhere. The cowgirl uniform she wears to work makes her feel silly; the dangerous creep in charge of the bar makes her feel small and scared. She keeps a bottle of vodka in the fridge next to a bottle of supermarket champagne - a depressing little reminder of life's ups and downs - and she knows exactly which she will turn to next.

More than twenty years before in a jam and bread northern mill town, a young police constable tries to arrest a small boy for shoplifting but is foiled by the ingenuity of the boy's older brother. This is Preston Deal's first meeting with the Casey brothers, and he won't ever forget it. All three are destined to meet again, and next time all three will be armed to the teeth.

 Meanwhile, in a country and western bar where Saturday nights are now called Cajun Nights, Chrissy Bridges serves a shy young stranger and changes her life forever. The stranger's name is Richard Linton. He's seventeen years old, fearless, reckless, and he happens to be a member of the most notorious gang of bank robbers in modern criminal history.

 It's Cajun Night. Richard Linton is in love. The Casey gang is in town and Preston Deal isn't far behind them. Parallel lines are about to cross, and the collision point is a country and western bar called the Old Black Kettle. Suddenly the only certainty in Chrissy's life is the certainty that ahead of her lies a torrid and immortal summer.

 Romantic, tragic, shamelessly violent, the ballad of Bridges and Linton is a love story with two barrels, from the first doomed encounter to the explosive final showdown.