Probation officer Alex Hastings is struggling with the customs, dialect and prejudice she faces as an 'incomer' to the Somerset Levels. When one of her probationers, Kevin Mallory, is charged with murdering the 'Elver Man', who operated in the poaching underworld, she is embroiled in the investigation. Determined to prove Mallory is innocent, Alex puts her own career at risk as she searches for the truth behind the Elver Man's death, but her efforts attract the attention of the real killer. Alex finds herself drawn into a web of family feuds, gang loyalties and revenge killings as an unknown predator stalks her across the eerie landscape of the Levels.