When Jake Honeycutt died in a hunting accident, his wife, Kate, hoped that moving to his family farm in North Carolina would help her grief and provide a home for their unborn baby. After all, in Colleton County, anecdotes about people dead a hundred years are not uncommon, and blood kinship stitches you into the community... doesn't it? But Jake's death was no accident and Kate soon realizes that she's still a Yankee outsider.

... even murder!

Then a second body turns up, one of Jake's former army buddies. From antebellum mansions to humble tenant houses, Kate's new neighbors soon supply her with clues that point to the jungles of Southeast Asia and to an old alliance that has left a killer roaming the quiet tobacco fields with unfinished business to attend to... bloody family business.