Cady's horror is that of the working man who has put his soul and sweat and hands to build a civilization, only to see the edifice of his creation taken apart by time, by selfishness, and by the warped, dark corners of the men who would bend the work of others to their own ends. The Hauntings of Hood Canal presents a small town in Washington state, a town that has settled into its own equilibrium, only to have that equilibrium upset by the arrival of a man who's a little too fond of small children. A responsible blacksmith rids the town of this infection, but the doing of it creates a moral imbalance, and restoring the balance means facing an evil that has cracked the foundation of civilization itself.

A dark and moody novel of small-town life in Washington disturbed by a mysterious entity that drags cars into Hood canal. A cast of drifters, hustlers, and others on the fringe find their lives drawn into a vortex of anxiety by an investigation into the deaths caused by an ancient creature that takes up residence in the canal they live by.