On the eve of his 40th birthday, Patrick Gallager, a New York documentary film producer, retreats to the mountainous river regions of Central Vermont to get away from his faltered past life, to fish, and to research the cannonisation of Father D'Angelo, a priest who witnessed his community ravaged by an epidemic. In the swallows of the river, Gallager's line catches on a submerged body and in the search for clues in a line of horrific murders, Gallager discovers a community haunted by the sins of their ancestors.