A nationally-known historian has disappeared while on a research mission in a small Massachusetts town that was born as a utopian religious community, and the St. Paul newspaper reporter-photographer team of Warren "Mitch" Mitchell and Alan "Al" Jeffrey is sent by their editor to cover the manhunt. Dr. Pinchas M. Butz, who was studying the life of 18th-century utopian minister Adin Ballou in the tiny town of Hopedale, has not been seen for several days when Mitch and Al arrive on the scene. When the wrapper from the professor's favorite candy bar is found in a wooded hiking area, the missing person search turns into an all-out hunt for a body. The body is uncovered in the woods and the search for Dr. Butz twists to a hunt for his knife-wielding killer. Mitch needs to get home soon because his wife, Martha, is being stalked by a mysterious stranger on the streets of St. Paul, but when he and Al come face to face with the professor's killer, they are left stranded in a snowstorm, searching for a way to get in out of the cold.