Nothing really bad ever happens in Avalon, South Carolina. It's a good safe place to raise a family, full of friendly smiles, where no one locks their doors at night. Even the Klan has been pretty quiet for as long as anyone can remember.
Jamie Fletcher, an army vet and auto mechanic, doesn't want much except a quiet life with his wife and daughter. Addie Prichard, a schoolteacher in the mostly black community of Ezekiel's Mill, would simply like enough textbooks for her students. Though neither is the kind who would ever go looking for trouble, as the summer of 1962 draws to a close, trouble finds them.
Long kept secrets come to light, threatening to upset the comfortable lives of everyone in Avalon and the simple day-to-day of high school football games, church socials, and gossip at the barber shop. An evil has taken root, one the entire town has turned a blind eye to for far too long.
David Ben-Ari, an erratic Israeli agent, knows what that evil looks like. He has come to Avalon hunting a fugitive Nazi war criminal. Through him Jamie and Addie learn about the Werewolves, Nazis who fought a failed guerilla war against the occupying Allies after the end of World War II. He also lets them in on a horrifying secret-the name is anything but fanciful.
A true monster stalks the dark night claiming victim after victim, and the three only have until the next full moon to stop a demonic killer that won't be satisfied by anything but blood.