Ten weeks ago, Homicide Detective Sailor Doyle worked his first solo case, a gruesome double murder in a remote farmhouse in Virginia. And things turned very nasty for him ...

Now Sailor is recuperating with his family at a beach house in Belmar, on the New Jersey shore. He's struggling with prescription drug withdrawal while trying to build up his shattered shoulder and leg, and he's also trying to rebuild his shattered relationship with his wife. Jenny, while pleased he's alive, is less enamoured with the idea of reconciliation.

Seeking refuge in a century-old beachfront resort hotel, Sailor meets an elderly man, Mark Moses Stillman, a former minor league baseball player whose wife and daughter drowned in the ocean off Belmar years earlier. Sailor's having nightmares about his previous case, and when he starts seeing things again, he realises that once again he's being guided to the truth ... even if it's not what he wants to hear. And it's not long before he finds himself investigating those deaths.