In the winter of 1846, after attending a performance of Shakespeare in Detroit, young wife Claire Hinman is found stabbed and bludgeoned in a snowy field. The person behind her death has devised a scheme to implicate Claire's husband, Carl. To avoid arrest, Carl flees to Ohio with his young daughter, Mariel. But the past soon catches up with him. Claire's father comes from the East Coast demanding answers, while a mysterious medicine show also begins to close in, for reasons of its own. When Mariel becomes ill, her only hope is a doctor in Detroit. Carl knows he must risk returning to the city he vowed never to set foot in again. There the characters converge, confrontations occur, old wounds are bound up, and a surprising killer is revealed. But will justice be served and the culprit held accountable?