For Assistant District Attorney Mary Crow, the misty mountains of Little Jump Off, North Carolina, still echo with secrets hidden in shallow graves. Now, at the request of the FBI, she is called back from Atlanta to her childhood home for a matter both professional ... and deeply personal.

Three federal judges are dead - victims of an assassin so swift and skilled in the deadly arts that the only clue left behind is his trademark black feather. The killer's last victim was executed in a fashion so brazen, brutal, and horrifying, it even has hardened law enforcement officials rattled. They are desperate to protect the next suspected target - Judge Irene Hannah - but the stubborn jurist has adamantly refused federal protection.

It is up to Mary - and tight-lipped, hard-boiled FBI agent Daniel Safer - to protect her old friend and mentor as best they can. But the threat is much closer to home than Mary could ever imagine. When Judge Hannah disappears, Mary must follow her on a terrifying chase through the Carolina wilderness she knows and loves. Deep within the beautiful and treacherous forest, a rogue killer and his army of "soldiers" are waiting. Soon Mary will have to confront a battle for survival in a place where there is no law and no mercy ... only a darker justice.