In today’s episode, we meet Jon Buchan, author of “Code of the Forest,” where we find ourselves at the intersection of good old boy politics and an attack on the free press.

In Jon’s novel, a powerful South Carolina senator works hard to take down publisher Wade McNabb’s small town newspaper after a story he prints exposes high-level political corruption. To fend off the threat, McNabb forms an uneasy relationship with young lawyer Kate Stewart, and together they put everything on the line to protect the newspaper’s confidential source in a lawsuit that could bring ruin to both of them.

The first sentence of the book introduces us to the antagonist: “Senator Buck Ravenel hunkered in the chill of the Lowcountry dawn, pondering ducks and politics.”