Matthew Callahan, an artist, goes to Cape Cod in winter to try to put his alcohol-wrecked life back together. He takes a job assisting an aging Princeton scholar and, during time off, stumbles on an abandoned cabin in the woods. He breaks into it and finds blood stains on the floor, a skeleton tucked neatly in bed under rotting covers, a 150-year old journal telling of the couple who lived in the cabin all those years ago, and the murder that ended one life and destroyed the other. There are sub-plots involving rebuilding family relationships, a tragic auto accident, a tender love story, and a shocking final chapter.