Virgil Flowers heads north to solve a puzzling murder - and finds that the country is very rough indeed. While competing in a fishing tournament in a remote area of northern Minnesota, Flowers gets a call from Lucas Davenport asking him to investigate a murder at a nearby resort, where a woman has been shot while kayaking. The resort is for women only: a place to relax, get fit, recover from plastic surgery and commune with nature. As Flowers starts to ask questions, he finds a web of connections between the people at the resort, the victim and some local women, notably a talented country singer. And the more he digs, the more he discovers the resort to be a hotbed of jealousy, blackmail, greed, anger and fear. And then he discovers that this is not the first murder, that there was a second, seemingly unrelated killing the year before. And that there's about to be a third, definitely related one, any time now. And as for the fourth ...well, Virgil had better hope he can catch the killer before that happens. Because it could be his own.