In a small Maine valley, thirteen-year-old Pierce Morin, born blind and deaf, possesses a terrifying gift: he can hear evil whispering - and knows an elusive, deadly force is stalking the people he loves. Detective Jake Crowley has run far away from his Maine hometown. But a bizarre shootout in Galveston, Texas, finally draws him home: to a woman he can barely face, to the unsolved mystery of his mother's murder, to a family curse and a valley that's fallen under the spell of a serial killer.