Deputies Frack Tilsley and Robely Danner are called to a remote section of woods outside their small farming community of Abundance, Wisconsin, where a man stands handcuffed and frozen to a tree. As they investigate this brutal murder, a young woman discovers the purse of a missing secretary from nearby Promontory which contains a cryptic diary. Digging deeper, Tilsley and Danner discover common denominators linking several suspects to two murder victims and possibly a third, with the chief of police himself on their list