Hawkins County — Steven Merrill Ulmen

A cocky, wise-cracking young Juvenile Probation Officer battles troubled lives and senseless deaths as he establishes a career and finds adventure friendship, romance and a new home in Hawkins County. Although fictionalized, this bittersweet story is based on actual people and events on a small, rural county. But "Hawkins County" is more than a corrections casework study. It is a trip back to the 1970's, and it's all here - the movies, the TV shows, the tunes, the jokes, the humor, the heartache, Vietnam - all the elements that influenced our lives during the era. "Hawkins County" is for baby boomers, Vietnam veterans, law enforcement officials, social workers, youth counselors, probation officers - yes, even juvenile delinquents and others who have found themselves on the wrong side of the law - and everyone else who savors a nostalgic story about life as it happened during the 1970's.