Farrel is a good small-town cop, but one who has to struggle with personal problems. Divorced four years earlier, he is something of a misogynist and intolerant of others' shortcomings. Things change, however, when he meets a girlfriend of yesteryear, the widow of a gang member murdered by other criminals, and very shortly thereafter, a much younger woman. During police enquiries into the disappearance of another local criminal, he becomes aware that there is something more sinister occurring "on his patch." The dead body of the missing man is found floating in the sea, pumped full of heroin....

Farrel is a good small-town cop, but one who has to struggle with personal problems. Divorced four years earlier, he is something of a misogynist and intolerant of others' shortcomings. Things change, however, when he meets a girlfriend of yesteryear, the widow of a gang member murdered by other criminals, and very shortly thereafter, a much younger woman. During police enquiries into the disappearance of another local criminal, he becomes aware that there is something more sinister occurring "on his patch." The dead body of the missing man is found floating in the sea, pumped full of heroin....

Streetwise Rick Johnson takes a detour suggested by a strange hillbilly-type, forcing him to leave the trusted highway and onto a virtually unknown mountain road. This leads him to the Black Mountain, a part of the world he has never before visited. The path of his journey challenges everything he thinks he knows of the world. Who would ever contemplate traveling back into the history of a mountain and its people? Who would expect to meet and talk to people long dead, or nearly get himself killed by a phantom truck, or come face to face with unworldly creatures, intent on tasting his blood?...