Lucas Davenport investigates the discovery of several bodies in an abandoned Minnesota farmyard, and realizes they are the work of a local serial killer who has been murdering one victim every summer for years.
Lucas Davenport deals with security concerns during preparation for the Republican National Convention, as a criminal from his past targets his fourteen-year-old daughter.
Investigating the seemingly open-and-shut double homicide case involving a pair of wealthy elderly women, Lucas Davenport begins to suspect that the handful of small items that were stolen from the crime scene may have had more significant values.
When his adopted daughter's friend reports that someone has been killing off a circle of nomadic panhandlers, Lucas travels to North Dakota, where he encounters a dangerously violent subculture.