A serial killer is stalking the high plains of Montana, and Du Pré just might be the only man who can stop him Gabriel Du Pré does not want to read the newspaper article. A fifth body has been found—another girl raped, tortured, and left in the Montana wasteland to be devoured by coyotes—and opening the paper will draw him into the hunt for her killer. But Du Pré, the cattle inspector and occasional deputy, has already been drafted. Minutes later, the local sheriff calls, asking for help at a crime scene. Another girl is found dead, this time in Du Pré's backyard. Not far from the body, he finds two more murdered women lain over each other in a grisly cross. If this is a clue, it tells him nothing. As more girls die, and a young woman he cares about disappears, Du Pré fights to comprehend the murderer. To find this monster, he must learn to think like him and give in to the part of himself that knows how to kill.