Driven by troubling presentiments, Mim Fitz travels alone to the isolated cottage on Cape Breton Island she shared with her late partner. Despite happy reunions with old friends and the prospect of houseguests arriving soon, she is spooked by signs that someone has been in her cottage and sightings of the shadowy person Cape Breton has dubbed the "Black Specter." She is relieved and pleased at the prospect of near neighbors when she learns the house next door, called the "Murder House" by locals, has been leased to wildlife filmmakers from Vancouver. Fashionable Astrid Dunn, her dynamic husband CEO Nick Dunn and their employees, Natureflics' brash photographer Gabe Dreyfus, and buxom film editor Karen Connor are in Cape Breton to document coywolves. The day after her visit to the renters in the Murder House, Mim learns of Astrid Dunn's death. When Constable Claudine Hurley calls, Mim tells her what she knows about the dead woman. She also recounts signs of an intruder in her cottage. Cape Breton Island is Constable Claudine Hurley's first posting. After she and Sergeant Potts are called to the death of Astrid Dunn, he swiftly pronounces the death to be "accidental." She senses there is more to Astrid Dunn's death than meets the eye. She tells Potts only to have him vehemently dismiss her doubts. Constable Hurley investigates further. Help from a retired chief superintendent and films taken on the night of the death as well as critical information from Mim Fitz and her houseguests enable Constable Hurley to piece together the events that led to Astrid Dunn's death. Constable Hurley's tenacity ultimately earns the respect and support of her superior officer. And Mim Fitz comes to understand the source of the unease that has haunted her.