The young stranger came to town just past twelve noon. Within an hour, the idiot had been assaulted, hands bloodied and broken; Deputy Travis suffered a major stroke at the wheel of his patrol car; and Babe Laurie was found murdered. The young stranger who had preceded all of these events was sitting in a jail cell ...

That stranger is Kathy Mallory. Having left her detective's badge back in New York, she has made her way to Dayborn, a small town in the wetlands of Louisiana. There, seventeen years earlier, an unspeakably brutal act had changed her life forever. Now she is back to take a very personal revenge ...