In the 1920s, three of Mark Mayes’s ancestors left to help build the first road through the Everglades—backbreaking labor from which they never returned. Now, decades later, Mayes has discovered letters that point to murder as the cause of their disappearance, and he hires Max Freeman to get to the bottom of it all. But as Freeman follows the trail of evidence, he incurs the wrath of the corporation that built the road, and finds that the murder case may not be as cold as everyone assumed. Freeman’s search takes him to the heart of the Everglades to reveal the truth behind the murders—and put a stop to a cycle of violence three generations in the making.