[1] The plot concerns a lawyer being stalked and tormented by a criminal he helped put in prison.

[1] The basic plot of the novel concerns an attorney named Sam Bowden, who caught Max Cady, an illiterate, brutal rapist, in the act.

As his wife is leaving the hospital, she nearly dies in a car crash after Cady removes the lug nuts from one of her wheels.

Then he hears his wife screaming, followed by gunshots, but badly sprains his ankle falling from the ladder from the detached garage's attic.

It turns out Bowden's frantic shot hit Cady and severed an artery and he bled to death.

The Cape Fear River is not featured in the novel, though it is integral in both film adaptations.