The good people of Wilderness Church have come to Hawthorn County, Missouri in an Air Stream trailer caravan following their charismatic leader, Father Joshua. They have ceased their wandering and created a closed commune of the the faithful at Canaan Camp. There they enjoy an idylic life sealed away from the corruption of "the world."

 

But a serpent has entered Eden.

 

Bobby Lee Paget is on a murder spree. The manhunt is nation-wide, but the people of the camp have no idea who he is or what he has done in Marked Tree, Arkansas. A family of three is dead there. Two more die in Fayetteville. When more murders occur in Oregon, no one thinks that Paget could possible be in the Ozarks where he abandoned a stolen car—no one but novice rural deputy Richard Carter. When unidentified bodies show up on logging trails in Hawthorn County, he alone suspects that Paget is responsible.

 

Paget is a master manipulator. If he has his way, he will utterly debase the "purest woman in the camp" and use her naive boyfriend to achieve destruction on a scale that will make everyone remember the name of Bobby Lee Paget.