On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy's fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations made when Nick's clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-year Nick isn't doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife's head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist...

"On Memorial Day, 1958, as the people of Jewel, Minnesota gather to remember and honor the sacrifice of so many sons in the wars of the past, the half-clothed body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. Investigation of the murder falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the...