The past comes alive with deadly force when Dan Fowler returns to the Connecticut town where he grew up. He is quickly thrust into the mysterious shooting of a young soldier by a beautiful woman in the waning days of World War II. The shooting had been swept swiftly under a rug, but Dan's new employer thinks it was cold-blooded murder. And, as Dan starts sifting through the remaining evidence, he begins to smell the fishy stench of a massive cover-up. Dan goes back a half-century in time and as far south as Florida as he seeks to make sense of a very cold trail. Things heat up in a hurry, however, and Dan soon finds himself the target of a very much alive and resourceful enemy determined to keep the past buried. As he tries to keep himself alive while he untangles the mystery, Dan also attempts to cope with the many changes his hometown has endured. He meets old friends, makes new ones, and with their help uncovers the sordid truth behind murders old and new.