The book was published by Dutton, won the 1993 Bram Stoker Award[1] and was a 1994 WFA nominee[2] In the 1950s, Tom Pasmore is a young boy who lives on Mill Walk, a Caribbean island mostly inhabited by wealthy American and German expatriates.

Hearing the cries of an animal, he finds a teenaged boy named Jerry and his older sister Robyn.

While he recuperates in the hospital, Tom is visited by Lamont von Heilitz, an elderly neighbor who has taken an odd interest in him.

Foxhall Edwardes, a suspect in Marita's murder, is killed in a shootout with two police officers, Mendenhall and Klink, at almost the same time.

Tom then learns that his own grandfather, Glendenning Upshaw, heard the gunshots that killed Marita on the night it happened.

Glen prompts Tom to go to Eagle Lake for the summer, where Jeanine was killed, as it is a beautiful camping site and tourist attraction.

After the walk, Tom sees a commotion at the hospital and enters, finding out that Mendenhall, one of the officers injured by Foxhall, has died.

Tom invites Sarah to go with him and speak to Hattie Bascombe, who he thinks might live at the old slave house across town.

Hattie takes the two of them to see Nancy a few blocks away, who says that she was suspended from her job at Shady Mount because she wouldn't stay away from Mendenhall while he healed, as her nursing style involves a personal connection with one's patients.

Tom hears on the news that Klink, the only surviving officer of the Foxhall Edwardes incident, was killed by a group of criminals when he tried to prevent them from robbing a bank.

Tom goes into town and looks at old news articles at the library, searching for more evidence on the Jeanine Thielman case he is working on.

The next morning, upon returning from his walk, Barbara Deane tells him that Ralph Redwing's bodyguards came by under Buddy's orders to deliver a message to Tom: Stay away from Sarah.

Glen and the investigating officer, Spychalla (the deputy chief of police), both agree that it was a wild shot from a hunter.

Entering to search for her, he finds several notes from Jeanine Thielman accusing the reader of murder: "I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE... YOU MUST BE STOPPED... YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR SIN."

Tom also believes that Barbara murdered Mendenhall by slipping him the wrong medication while she was on her shift at Shady Mount.

Tom, Sarah, and Fritz drive to an out-of-business shed leased by the Redwings and find Nappy surrounded by many stolen items before returning anxiously back to the lodge complex.

He also reveals to Tom that Lamont is his real father and that Gloria Upshaw, his mother, was forced to marry Victor Pasmore to suppress scandal.

Lamont tells him that Sarah is okay, and that Ralph Redwing and his wife left for Venezuela, as well as that Jerry and Robbie, the arsonists, had stolen a car and crashed it into a ditch before being arrested.

Lamont tells Tom of a string of murders involving the words BLUE ROSE written near those killed.

He killed Jeanine after she threatened to expose his political corruption and the fact that he had made Gloria, his daughter, then a little girl, his sex slave.

When Anton was blamed for the crime, Magda, Tom's grandmother, found out what a horrible person Glen was, and in a depressive state, waded into the lake and drowned herself.

Tom and Lamont write I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE over and over on pieces of paper, copying Barbara Deane's notes, and mail them to Glen in order to "rattle his cage".

Lamont lends Tom "The Divided Man", a novelization of the Blue Rose murders written by Timothy Underhill.

The two learn that Jerry hired his friend, a man named Schilling, to shoot at Tom when he looked out the window.

The three of them (Tom, Natchez, and Andrés) travel to the Third Court in search of Glen, who they discover was a lover of both Barbara Deane and Carmen Bishop to make himself blend in.

The three make Glen's death look like a suicide by placing his body in a position with the gun against his temple, where Natchez shot him.

The final scene of the book shows Tom and Sarah reuniting at the Mill Walk Zoo, and beginning their relationship together.