Murdering the same unidentifiable man every night in a dream is getting on Jim Nelson's nerves. So is an email only he can see on his office computer: Don't do it! What can they mean? All he knows is that they began after his wife, daughter and grandchildren all died within one year, propelling him, in blind fury, to reject the existence of God. Life without them seems not worth living until Samantha "Dusty" Miller, a tough, abrasive, pretty and much younger co-worker penetrates his hopeless void. Their relationship edges cautiously beyond platonic and, in spite of feeling as though he is cheating on his dead wife, Jim invites Dusty to join him on a trip to Minnesota's North Shore. There he makes a disturbing discovery: The killing dream has a real-life location and a flesh-and-blood victim whose development plans could ruin Jim's Lake Superior paradise.