Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, crime reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri, to cover the unsolved murders of two young girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother, Adora, or the half-sister she barely knows, an eccentric teenage queen bee named Amma. Back in her childhood bedroom in the family's Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims a bit too strongly. As Camille investigates the brutal crimes alongside out-of-town detective Richard Willis and local police Chief Vickery, she struggles to piece together a psychological puzzle from her past. Dogged by her own demons, self-harming habits, and severe alcoholism, she is forced to confront the toxic family dynamics and traumatic childhood memories that have shaped her damaged life. Set against the oppressive summer heat and sinister southern gothic atmosphere of small-town Missouri, the mystery deepens as dark secrets are brought to light. Camille races to uncover the identity of the killer before another girl is taken, unaware that the darkest truths lie much closer to home than she ever imagined.