Twenty year veteran investigator Sergeant James Buanacore ( ) starts the most important investigation of his life when a drug bust goes tragically bad. The death of the apparent suspect forces James out of the job he loves and into retirement. When James' wife Stephanie ( ) has a miscarriage, he is devastated and begins to wonder about and question his previously strong faith. Depressed and angry, James isolates himself until his brother ( ) encourages him to take a job as a criminal justice teacher and baseball coach at a Christian high school. With his cop mentality challenging his students, James struggles through experiences with an unsupportive principal, a guidance counselor with a secret, and rebellious students. But when his best option seems to be quitting, a student challenges him to begin the investigation that will change his life, and those of his students, forever.

Set in mountainous Sevier County, Tennessee, Child of God tells the story of Lester Ballard, a dispossessed, violent man whom the narrator describes as "a child of God much like yourself perhaps." Ballard's life is a disastrous attempt to exist outside the social order. Successively deprived of parents and homes and with few other ties, Ballard descends literally and figuratively to the level of a cave dweller as he falls deeper into crime and degradation.