One summer night in 1955, a boy and his cousin plunge naked into the moonlit waters of a rural quarry. Only one of them emerges.  Just as he had promised he would on that fateful night two decades earlier, Miles Teagarden--now divorced and a struggling writer--returns to his family home in Arden, Wisconsin. But the landscape he once knew so well has turned eerie and threatening. In the small town, his erstwhile friends and rivals, even his blood relatives, view him with suspicion. Their paranoia seems justified when another beautiful blonde teenage girl goes missing—much as his cousin Alison did all those years ago. Miles feels a sinister force is at work, gathering strength. As the anniversary of the tragic night approaches, he begins to fear that Alison will find a way to make their date . . .