Jesse McDermitt has returned to the Florida Keys. But things in the islands are different now. The locals are worried, but nobody can explain why. A sense of foreboding hangs in the humid July air.

One of the locals, an investment banker, is waiting tables at the Rusty Anchor Bar and Grill. He seems a shell of the man he used to be—a hollow man whose fortune and wife are gone. He's tight-lipped about how he came to be a guest in Rufus's little shack behind the bar.

Something very sinister is going on—Jesse smells it. He's usually very good at rooting out the source of a problem, but is stumped this time.

Until another tight-lipped hollow man shows up.