Fifty-six-year-old Dr. Obie Hardy is an ER physician and part-time medical examiner in rural Virginia celebrating the end of a long week when he is summoned to a grisly scene by seasoned sheriffs detective, Bruce Duffer. A missing persons decomposing body has been found buried in an old graveyard bordering Buggs Island Lake. Now it is up to Dr. Hardy to determine how the person died and when. When the medical examiner report is completed, both Duffer and Dr. Hardy are left to wonder why someone would scalp their victim. The murder looks like a one-off, sickening death until another body is discovered near John H. Kerr Dam. After Duffer begins to suspect that a perverted serial killer is lurking in the shadows around Mecklenburg County, a Virginia state trooper and FBI profiler step in to help. As the bodies add up, Duffer finally identifies a prime suspect. Now he and Dr. Hardy must find enough evidence to put the killer away, before it is too late for another innocent victim. In this thrilling tale, a county medical examiner assists a local detective in hunting down a serial killer after dead bodies begin adding up in their rural Virginia town.