FBI agent Jess Harding treks to Anchorage to hunt down a sadistic killer who's re-emerged from a five-year hiatus--a killer who has already slipped her grasp once before. The endless days of an Alaskan summer can't thwart the fiend's plans as he slashes his way through the rural community, where everyone knows your name and always distrusts the outside. With the help of Oscar Linstrom, an old colleague who wants to be more than friends, Jess attempts to immerse herself in the area's culture, leading her to a strange rural village inhabited by Russian Old Believers hell-bent on protecting their way of life. Even the locals are outsiders to the Old Believers, and Jess needs a safe haven in the glare of daylight because a blood-stained message left at the scene of the most recent murder says Jess is no longer the hunter--but the hunted. The trail eventually leads her back to San Francisco and a final confrontation with the Daylight Killer.