After being released from prison for the murder of his father, Israel Pike returns to Salvation Point Island off the coast of Maine. He’s treated as an outcast, especially by his uncle, Sterling Pike, the lone sheriff’s deputy on the island. When Israel spies a yacht floating offshore, he rows out to it, discovers everyone on board—seven men—murdered, and becomes the prime suspect.

Twelve-year-old Lyman Rankin lives elsewhere on the island with his alcoholic father. Whenever things get rough, Lyman hides out in nearby abandoned houses until it’s safe to go home. During one of these forays, he meets an injured woman who is scared for her life, but refuses to explain why.

The yacht murders explode into the national news when two of the victims are identified as Maine senate candidates from the opposite parties. What were two opponents doing on the same yacht? And, if everyone is dead, who committed the murders?

State Police Lieutenant Jenn Salazar comes to the island to investigate the murder, but makes little headway because the locals don’t trust people from away. Especially since one potential senator had spearheaded a law outlawing lobstering off the coast of the island years earlier, economically desolating the inhabitants and making them all suspects.