Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls.
For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town.
Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family's Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly.
Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming.
記者卡蜜兒．普里克結束了在精神療養院的短暫治療，剛出院的她就得面對棘手的工作，她受派回到家鄉小鎮報導兩名未滿 13 歲少女的謀殺案。
多年以來，卡蜜兒都難以和神經質又患有憂鬱症的母親溝通，也對同母異父的妹妹知之甚少，極少交談，詭異的是這名年僅十三歲的少女竟控制著小鎮。
卡蜜兒的老家是棟維多利亞式的豪宅。她在以前的房間安頓好後，卻發現自己竟對受害少女有種太過強烈的認同感。
深受心魔所苦的卡蜜兒，若要知道整個事件的真相，她就必須解開自己過去的心理之謎。更要緊的是在這返鄉之旅存活下來。