Thirty years ago, a young man mysteriously vanished from rural Black Pool, Mississippi. Now his skeleton has been discovered in a murky swamp, a length of rope entwined in its bones...

Detective Louis Kincaid doesn't regret having left the hometown that always treated him as an outcast. But nothing could have prepared him for the ominous reaction of the locals when he returns to investigate the decades-old slaying. With a veil of suspicion and terror descending over the quiet streets of Black Pool, Kincaid is about to uncover a trail of blood-chilling evil as he hunts a shadowy killer whose work is far from over...