One summer night in 1955, a boy and his cousin plunge naked into the moonlit waters of a rural quarry. Only one of them emerges.<br><br>Two decades later, Miles Teagarden, now divorced and a struggling writer, returns to his family home in Arden, Wisconsin, just as he had promised he would on that fateful night. But the landscape he once knew so well has turned eerie and threatening. His erstwhile friends and rivals in the small town, and even his blood relatives, view him with suspicion. And their paranoia seems justified when another beautiful, blonde teenage girl goes missing—much as his cousin Alison did all those years ago. Miles feels a sinister force is at work, gathering strength. And as the anniversary of their quarry swim approaches, he begins to fear that Alison will find a way to make their date . . .