In schools everywhere children are bullied for being different. Most suffer no long-term damage. Others develop deep psychological problems. In the case of one child, now grown, the taunts had consequences no one could have foreseen for the kindness of one boy so many years ago resulted in a decades old obsession. A chance encounter on a special day for Cadogan Cain triggers a series of horrifying events that bring him face-to-face with an adversary more cunning and dangerous than any he has ever known.

Cadogan Cain, a photojournalist with a secret, bands together with his girlfriend Angie and his best friend Lt. Bob McLean to solve one of the worst crimes in the history of their city. The mass murder of ten teenagers in a place known as Devil's Hole. Their investigation dredges up the past of a historic site and of their personal lives while facing an antagonist whose sociopathic personality demands he get what he wants no matter who gets in the way.

Three islands, three bodies, and a mystery that involves the past and the present. A story that mixes secrets, lies, and immorality with mistrust between the classes and results in a tragic tale of grief gone horribly wrong.

True fear is in the unexpected. It grips the heart of a man who thinks his past is behind him. It troubles a woman who has been living two lives, and it pounces on the innocence of a child at play. For Cadogan Cain, Angie Bianco, and a boy named Frankie, fear is hand delivered by a ghost of a man whose outward beauty hides a soul as black as coal.