Tyler Fox, from Goessel, Kansas, is a sophomore at St. Alfanus, a private Catholic college near Hooks in Bowie County, Texas. Tyler is an up-and-coming golfer who will hopefully lead the St. Alfanus team to a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics championship. One day as he is practicing prior to the start of fall semester, the editor of the St. Alfanus Clarion, Charlie Harrison, shows up to do a story about Tyler's golfing prowess. Charlie convinces Tyler, who is an English major, to come work for The Clarion. Days before the fall semester is to begin, Tyler takes an evening jog through the golf course. He comes across the 14th green, where a man is wailing as he holds a bloody woman in his arms. Before Tyler knows it, he, Charlie and the rest of the Clarion's small newspaper staff are caught up in a murder investigation. The woman who was murdered, Alison Alcott, was the daughter of the college president. Four college journalists spend the entire semester trying to dig up information about the murder, mainly because the local sheriff's department isn't making much progress. The sheriff is concerned about the upcoming election, and simply wants to pin the murder on someone, such as Alison's boyfriend, Robert Ray Turner, the man holding Alison's dead body on the 14th green. Will the students discover "whodunit?"