Springtime in northern Michigan: a picture-perfect scene. Until struggling mystery writer Emily Kincaid gets a visit from her foul-weather friend Deputy Dolly, who frantically demands Emily's help. Sandy Lake's receding waters have revealed a bullet-pierced skull, along with a keepsake that could mean serious trouble for a man Dolly once loved.

While an end-of-the-world revivalist group shakes up Leetsville, Emily Kincaid is deep in the northern Michigan woods researching her latest story for the local paper. But her walk gets cut short when she comes upon an eerily motionless woman propped against a tree . . .