Special Agent Pendergast takes on a private case in Exmouth, Massachusetts - a quaint village on the coast north of Salem - to investigate the theft of a valuable wine cellar. He travels to the seaside town with his ward, Constance Green, where they quickly discover something far more sinister: a bricked-up niche in the wine cellar that holds the remains of a man, tortured and then entombed alive 150 years ago. But why?

Seeking revenge after his wife Helen is murdered, Special Agent Pendergast chases the killers from Scotland to New York City and into the bayous of Louisiana and discovers that Helen may have been a collaborator in her own death.

In the wake of a series of bizarre murders in which claw prints are found near each of the victims, agent Pendergast teams up with officer Vincent d'Agosta in an investigation with apparent ties to the supernatural.