About the book: In the heart of “flyover country,” Camden County, Missouri, and the Lake of the Ozarks seem like a sleepy backwater. But beneath that calm surface churns an unruly world of drunks, predators, murderers, and eccentric locals. Join J Caleb Cunningham, an outsider risen to prosecutor, standing on the front lines of justice in rural America - where the distinction between the absurd and the tragic is razor thin.
In The State Rests: Crime And Punishment At Lake Of The Ozarks (2026), Cunningham dissects real cases with a prosecutor’s precision and a storyteller’s wit, pulling back the curtain on the theatrics of crime and punishment at the Lake of the Ozarks.
More than a collection of cases, this is a deeply human story, where colleagues become family amid the constant demands of community, revealing the power and politics, and the true burdens of public office. As Cunningham’s path builds toward a high-stakes election, the question looms: What does justice really mean and who are we trusting to deliver it?
About the author: J Caleb Cunningham is a trial attorney. A native of south Alabama, Cunningham earned his bachelor's degree and his Juris Doctor from the University of Alabama. He began his career in Mobile, founding a small firm and trying cases across the state.
In 2017, looking for a fresh start, he took a job as an assistant prosecutor in Camden County, Missouri - home to the Lake of the Ozarks. He stayed five years, rising to elected Prosecuting Attorney. During his tenure he secured multiple life sentences, prosecuted a double homicide, multiple child abuse cases, was a founding member of treatment courts, and ran an office of more than twenty attorneys and staff. He was named Missouri's DWI Hero of the Year in 2021. The State Rests is his firsthand account of those years - the cases, the characters, and the cost of public service in rural America. Cunningham now practices in complex litigation across the United States. He lives in Pensacola, Florida. The State Rests is his first book.
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