Young history professor Jack Turner takes a retreat at a lakeside cabin just outside of Culpepper Georgia to work on his doctoral dissertation. The cabin is owned by an ambitious state senator an inheritance from his father. Inside everything is exactly the way it was when the old man died ten years ago. While taking a break from his research Jack snoops through the father's books and finds an old photo album filled with black-and-white pictures of orphaned children. Intrigued he continues searching and finds what appears to be evidence of murder and an old leather journal handwritten entirely in German. Rachel Cook Jack's girlfriend translates the journal for him. What it reveals instantly puts both of their lives in mortal danger.