Pediatrician and amateur genealogist Anne McPhail arrives in the Vermont town of Culver's Mills on a journey into her own past. But she when she finds the dead body of the woman she was coming to meet, reference librarian Jennifer Smith, her journey takes a dangerous turn, into a history that includes hidden scandal and blackmail among the town elites. Local police enlist Anne's help but she comes close to losing her own life before exposing the killer in their midst.