In a rustic town in Washington State, a man's death upsets the quiet equilibrium of small-town life. A well-intentioned blacksmith performs a civic duty for the town, ridding it of a pernicious evil that has taken up residence along the canal, but the death of the predator allows a more ancient evil into the waters. The townsfolk find themselves caught a vortex of uncertainty and moral ambiguity as the investigators start to uncover hidden secrets long thought buried. From the author the Tulsa World says "has patented a hard-edged folksy narrative that conceals within its intricate voice the imminence of the supernatural" comes a tale of the dark side of the quintessential American small town.