A few nights before Halloween, as Cork O'Connor gloomily ruminates on his upcoming sixtieth birthday, he receives a call from his son, Stephen, who is working for a nonprofit dedicated to securing freedom for unjustly incarcerated inmates. Stephen tells his father that twenty years ago, as the newly elected sheriff of Tamarack County, Cork was responsible for sending an Ojibwe man named Axel Boshey to prison for a brutal murder that Stephen is certain he did not commit.

Sheriff Joanna Brady is looking forward to the holidays with her busy family, and to celebrating her daughter Jenny’s graduation from the police academy. But the family is interrupted when a body is discovered beneath a flooded bridge in the Arizona desert, and Joanna is called onto the case. A young boy was murdered, and the details of the crime scene tell Joanna two things: This was not the killer’s first murder. And it’s only a matter of time before he kills again.

Clare Fergusson, St. Alban's new priest, fits like a square peg in the conservative Episcopal parish at Miller's Kill, New York. She is not just a "lady"; she's a tough ex-Army chopper pilot, and nobody's fool. Then a newborn infant left at the church door brings her together with the town's police chief, Russ Van Alstyne, who's also ex-Army and a cynical good shepherd for the stray sheep of his hometown.

Michael Lobb has just been found dead on the floor of his family’s tin & pewter workshop. It’s suspicious enough that his body was found by a representative of Cornwall EcoMining, a company keen on acquiring his family’s land, and it’s made even worse when he’s revealed to have been the majority owner of the business and the sole obstacle preventing a deal from being made. But it doesn’t take long for Inspector Beatrice Hannaford to unearth the layers of estrangement that surrounded Michael in his final days, pointing suspicions elsewhere.

All Detective Sergeant Peter Grant wanted was a nice holiday up in Scotland. He'll need one once this is over...