In the insular community of Harmony Creek, the harvest is everything. And it must be paid for in blood.

Jaded journalist Ben Carter thought he had escaped the suffocating grip of his Appalachian town for good. But a routine assignment covering a mayoral election pulls him back into the world of family secrets and resentments he fled a decade ago, forcing a reunion with his stoic and estranged father. Ben expects to find simple small-town corruption, but when a mayoral candidate is found displayed like a scarecrow, he realizes the real power in Harmony Creek doesn't run from the courthouse-it bleeds from the soil.

The murders are ritualistic, each detail mirroring a chillingly specific folk song his mother used to sing. As he follows this macabre thread, Ben uncovers the town's most deeply buried truth: a secret society has been ensuring the town's prosperity for generations through periodic human sacrifice. They call it the harvest, and they sacrifice "Hollow Men"-those without strong community ties-to pay for their survival.

Now, with the town facing economic ruin and the Founder's Day festival approaching, another harvest is due. And Ben, studying the cult's ancient rules, is hit with a horrifying realization: the perfect candidate for the next sacrifice is his own father. Caught in a ticking clock thriller, Ben must unravel a political conspiracy that is really a religious one. To save his father, he must confront not only a murderous small town cult, but the ghosts of his own past and the terrible cost of prosperity that may have paid for his own life. The only thing more dangerous than the town's lies is the truth he's about to expose.