Having recovered from wounds received in Afghanistan, Joe Little Deer returns to the pristine woods of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. His aims are simple-to live at peace and work at the timber business he inherited from his father. Peace is short-lived when FBI Agent Mary Shannon enlists his aid against highly complex criminal enterprise in the north woods.

Agent Shannon is from Chicago, and she seeks Joe's help based only on his heroic military record as a sniper. In fact, when she first meets him she is disappointed. A tad under six feet, long hair as black as crow feathers, wearing a battered leather jacket, Joe Little Deer seems like just one more north woods lowlife, hardly up to the challenges Mary Shannon foresees. He'd surely never make the FBI.

Surrounded by an oddball cast of characters, Shannon and Little Deer discover the heart of evil, and try to eradicate it.