Dixon Sinclair arrives in Jexville, Mississippi, the town of her forebears, to find solace, stop drinking, and rebuild her life after her father's murder. As the new publisher of the weekly newspaper and a second-generation journalist, she's determined to ignite the political will of the townspeople and expose the corruption of the old guard. She forms an uneasy partnership with Sheriff J.D. Horton, another prodigal son returned hoping to find peace and a sense of fulfillment by keeping his town safe. Then two teenage girls disappear from a sandbar on the swift-moving Pascagoula River, and fears surface that evil lurks in the depths of the swampland-an evil consumed with rage against betrayal and an insatiable desire for vengeance. Suspicions fall on a mysterious transient, a young man running from a violent past in the Catholic Church of Mexico. Yet J.D. and Dixon discover that many there in Jexville have been betrayed, innocents suffering the sins of the fathers. Now they must find out who is willing to kill for revenge.