When a boy finds a skeleton buried in a dried-up reservoir, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks is brought in to head what seems like a routine, dead-end investigation. He finds it is anything but. With the help of Detective Sergeant Annie Cabbot, Banks uncovers long-kept secrets in a community that has resolutely concealed its past.

As Banks and Cabbot unravel the deceptive and desperate relationships of a half-century ago, suspense heightens, and the past finally bursts into the present with terrifying consequences.