David Lowry, the retired forensic scientist of the Sheriff's Office in Scottsdale and now the most sought after private forensic investigator in the country, is invited by an old colleague to join the investigation of a murder in West Virginia that copies exactly a scene in a famous movie called Night of the Hunter. He is joined by Rebecca Wise, senior special agent of the FBI, and together they discover that the current murder is only one of many dating back several years and taking place all over the country and all of them copies of scenes from famous films. Together, they join forces to find the killer. As they search for the killer, new murders take place, each increasingly more provocative, as if the murderer knows they are looking for him and is daring them to catch him.