Attorney Dave Abrams, haunted by his failure to protect a woman from her abusive husband, seeks to clear his head by traveling with his wife Kelly from Brooklyn to their new summer home in northern Michigan. Kelly carries with her the anxiety of having left Allie, her teenaged daughter, with her ex-husband Michael, fresh out of prison and showing signs of something dark emerging in his personality. Once in Michigan, Dave finds himself defending Frankie Asebou, an Ojibwe woman who has confessed to killing her husband, while Kelly learns that her daughter has fled Brooklyn with a friend and is driving to Michigan. While Dave works to find facts to support his conviction that Frankie is innocent, Kelly flies back to Brooklyn to pick up Allie’s trail, only to learn that Michael is also tracking their daughter. Meanwhile, aided by Livonia Walkingstick, an Ojibwe storyteller, and Kelly’s Uncle John, a retired cop from Chicago, Dave pursues his case.
The two plots converge in Michigan leading to an explosive and startling conclusion that leaves readers as breathless as the characters.