Ike Schwartz, Sheriff of Picketsville, Virginia, and his fiancée Ruth Dennis, the President of a local university, seek asylum from a trying year of academic and local politics on Scone Island, four miles off the coast of Maine. Its lack of electricity, reliable water supply, and phone service guarantee their seclusion and peace. The suspicious accident that resulted in the death of the mysterious Harmon Staley should not concern them at all. And it doesn't...until Ike's past as a CIA agent rolls in on him like the area's famous twelve-foot tides. Two more murders involving former colleagues send Ike's old CIA friend Charlie Garland searching for a connection. Stonewalling by the CIA and conspiracies - real and imagined - leave Ike and Ruth facing an unknown number of determined assassins alone on the island. Then Ruth's mother decides to drop in on them just as the excitement begins...