The stillness of the warm, Kentucky afternoon on Copperhead Cove is shattered by the echo of a high-powered rifle, sending the birds flying and two famous college basketball coaches to a watery grave. Their fishing guide, Bo Paxton, becomes collateral damage, thrashing through the murky waters of Quail Hollow Lake, fighting for his life while a mob enforcer hunts him down, beginning a life and death manhunt for Bo and a marked member of the Chicago mob.

Bo's brother, Ethan Paxton, and his private eye friend, Jake Delgado, both from far-away California, search the unfamiliar environs of the Kentucky hill country for Bo, with the doomed wannabe mobster in tow. In a race against time and the Chicago mob, they battle an unforgiving lake, thunderstorms and poisonous snakes, all with the local sheriff and the FBI hot on their trail. Bo's fate will lie with whomever finds him first.