On the eve of tourist season in the resort community of Door County, Wisconsin, a killer is targeting young blond women, leaving their strangled bodies along the desolate Mink River. The killer ritualistically arranges the bodies to mimic sleep, except for the long blond hair, brushed over their faces. And his deadly calling card—a purple band wound around the victim's finger—a macabre symbol of love.

Leigh Girard, former Chicagoan and reporter for the Door County Gazette, is pulled into the murder investigation when she finds the first victim. Haunted by the grisly crime, she decides to write a letter to the killer begging him to stop. After the letter is printed in the Gazette, Leigh's nightmare really begins.

The killer breaks into her house and leaves a cryptic letter on her bed, hinting at his identity with a literary clue. After the police arrest a young fisherman for the murders, Leigh discovers another anonymous letter slipped into her mailbox. The letter contains another literary clue. With the police convinced they have the murderer, and Leigh convinced they don't, she races against time to decode the killer's clues before he kills again.

Not until Leigh's life is in jeopardy does she discover the horrifying truth: the killer has been living on the peninsula for years, dormant and waiting for the right catalyst to unleash his murderous compulsion.

With as many twist and turns as the Mink River, Death's Door is an eerie mystery thriller set against the wild beauty of the Door County peninsula in springtime.