When state high school track champion Suzanne Czarnopias goes missing her home town is shocked, but as the police find no clues to her fate, that shock turns to anger, first at the Lake City, New York, police, and then, when their newspaper prints letters to the editor claiming to be from the culprit, that anger and fear focuses on the new managing editor, Jim Stanton.
And as the community questions the newspaper's reporting, and rumors about the possibility of Stanton's role in the story make their way through the town, the letter writer threatens to make Stanton's daughter the next victim if he fails to pursue the story.
Relying on his military training for the first time as a civilian, Stanton readies himself for his first test as an investigator with everything near and dear to him on the line.