A congressman’s lovely executive assistant is murdered on La Tempestad Island. Federal police assign a seasoned veteran, Inspector Ed Lane, to investigate. On a whim, he picks novice detective Miranda Bell from the Fish and Game service to assist. Lane and Bell examine the crime scene, question possible witnesses, and try to identify a motive and suspects. They find the island a wild west balkanized among cattle ranchers, throwback vaqueros, hunters, a pot farmer, and Grateful Deadhead custodians of a nature sanctuary. Their investigation is complicated by Bell’s unbridled curiosity, Lane’s chronic motion sickness, a charismatic Mexican Mafia leader, a deceitful congressman, a DEA agent with a J. Edgar Hoover complex, and a meddling reporter chasing a Pulitzer.

Ed Lane is hired to act as security officer for a team restoring an island to its natural state. On site, the team’s anthropologist uncovers a local myth about a young woman named Isabel who lived there in the 1800s, had a love affair with a ship captain, and died after he abandoned her. The myth holds she haunts the island, taking out her vengeance on lonely men. Shortly after Lane arrives, a ranch employee hangs himself. Later, Lane encounters a young woman who says she’s Isabel and that he is her missing captain. A triple-crescent moon appears in the sky, an earthquake occurs, wildlife disappear, and the island becomes eerily silent. What does it all mean?