On a frozen January night, a young man loops one end of a long rope over the branch of a tree and ties the other end around his neck. A snowmobiler finds him thirty-six hours later, in that lonely corner of Lake Superior’s Upper Peninsula called Misery Bay.

Alex McKnight does not know this young man, and he won’t even hear about the suicide until another cold night, two months later and 250 miles away, when the door to the Glasgow Inn opens and the last person Alex would ever expect to see comes walking in to ask for his help.

What seems like a simple quest to find a few answers will turn into a nightmare of sudden violence and bloody revenge, and a race against time to catch a ruthless killer. McKnight knows all about evil. He once faced down a madman who killed his partner and left a bullet near his heart. Mobsters, drug dealers, hit men - he’s seen them all, and they’ve taken away almost everything he’s ever loved. But none of them could have ever prepared him for the darkness he’s about to face.