Martin Yakobowsky is a brilliant lawyer whose family originally comes from Poland. He is assigned by his legal practice to resolve a contentious case in the prevalently agricultural town in the heart of Iowa, where he was born. After his initial reluctance, due largely to his having cut off all ties with the community of his birthplace, Martin decides to return to the town. He arrives to find himself dealing with a dispute between a powerful state congressman and the poor Polish farm-workers. But while he works on the case, Martin is brought face to face with his past, as the murders of his former girl friend and her friends, the Scibor brothers resurface disconcertingly. The lawyer goes back over the judicial records which led to a maniac being sentenced to death. However certain details (the disappearance of the murder weapon among them) makes him realize that an innocent man was convicted. At the same time, it seems that Martin is being continually threatened. Images from his past reappear and begin to exert an obsessive hold over his memory. Gradually, the lawyer loses sight of the professional duties which brought him back to his hometown. He falls prey to a form of madness that leads him to the discovery of a horrifying truth about himself.