When the skeleton of a little girl tumblesout of a hopper car in Omaha, Porcupine County Sheriff Steve Martinez has a troublesome case on his hands. The case gets even more vexing when three more bodies turn up in hopper cars at the same remote siding. Two are young girls, but one is a grown man shot in the back of the head. After Steve and his comrades sweat the initial spadework, the heavy-footed FBI moves in, as it always does in cases of child abduction and murder. The Feds focus on a single Unsub, but when more adult corpses turn up in hopper cars elsewhere, Steve suspects that the killer—or killers—hired someone else to dispose ofthem. With the help of state troopers, deputies, tribal police, game wardens, the Ontario Provincial Police and even acouple of Detroit mobsters, Steve doggedly goes on the track of what the cops come to call "the Beast."