Police detective Dave Robicheaux faces off with the most diabolical villain he has ever faced in the twentieth installment of the Dave Robicheaux series. A summer getaway in Montana for Dave Robicheaux's family and friends is violently shattered by the arrival of serial killer and prison escapee Asa Surrette. He avoids the death penalty for murders he committed while capital punishment was banned in his home state of Kansas. But when Robicheaux's daughter Alafair writes a series of articles implicating Surrette in other murders which could get him death, he decides to escape prison and make her pay. Can Robicheaux save his daughter?