A series of malicious pranks prompts Fort St. Antoine deputy sheriff Claire Watkins to collaborate with forensic experts to solve a mystery with links to the brutal murders of a farming family fifty years earlier.

Deputy Sheriff Claire Watkins has had an easy summer in Fort St. Antoine, Wisconsin, the only problem is that her daughter Meg is leaving for college soon. When Claire walks down to the park to watch the Burning Boat, a large replica of a Norwegian longboat set on the shores of Lake Pepin, burned at the autumnal equinox she has no idea that more than just a wooden structure is going up in flames. The next day, the bones of a young woman are found...