Deputy Sheriff Will Kemp finds the body of a young woman, a brilliant researcher executed with shocking brutality, in the water of the Chesapeake Bay. Kemp is quickly plunged into a widening murder investigation which will pit him against a psychopath who kills with cold efficiency. Formerly a rising young NYPD Harbor Patrol officer, Kemp has moved from New York City to the upper Chesapeake after a crushing personal tragedy. He has returned to the quiet farmlands and waterways of his childhood haunts on the Sassafras River, hoping to find a way to start over. He teams up with the dedicated, feisty college professor he has been dating, whose technical knowledge of the Chesapeake will bring them close to the murderer. Now they are the prime targets.