Called to investigate a bizarre break-in at the home of a prominent judge, Acting Deputy Sheriff Billy Tree discovers an intricately woven miniature noose hanging in the victim's trophy room. It is a sinister calling card, one that will soon turn up at other spots around Falls City, Nebraska, first with Tree's drunken uncle Sean, and then in the Deputy Sheriff's own home.

As the nooses appear, another new arrival rocks the sensibilities of Falls City's citizens. Hulking, strong as an ox, and decked out in filthy overalls, Odette Collins looks pure country. A stranger in a town where everyone knows one another, and one another's business, Odette instantly draws the locals' curiosity and resentment. His manner also draws the wrong kind of attention: Odette is surly, menacing, combative.

Tree is inclined to back off, to leave Collins to go about his business, and to let the people of Falls City stew in their own fears and prejudices. But after Uncle Sean is involved in an altercation with Collins, and after Tree begins to suspect that Collins is having an affair with his girlfriend, Joan Blanchard, he will be forced to look more closely at the stranger's actions, and at his own values.

As the noose tightens, and simmering hatreds threaten to erupt once again into violence, Tree will need to explore the town's gruesome past and his own connection to it. Powerful forces are aligned against him, desperate to prevent him from uncovering the truth - desperate enough to kill. Soon Tree is fighting for his life, his love, and his beliefs in a town where history is about to be rewritten in blood.