Everyone at the small upstate New York college where Emerson Ward is teaching for a semester is shocked when the body of a student is found hanging from a tree in the nearby woods. Just days before he died, Bob Marter tried to tell Emerson about something evil going on at the school, but backed down before he went any further. Now Emerson is convinced that this was no suicide...someone wanted Bob dead. Nosing around gets Emerson more than he bargained for, and as the body count rises, he finds himself one step behind the killer...one step away from becoming the next victim.