Bret is a senior at Buckley prep school when a new student arrives with a mysterious past. Robert Mallory is shielding a secret from Bret and his friends even as he becomes a part of their circle. Bret's obsession with Mallory is equaled only by his increasingly unsettling preoccupation with the Trawler, a serial killer who seems to be drawing ever closer to Bret and his friends, taunting them with grotesque threats and horrific acts of violence. Thwarted by the world and by his own innate desires, buffeted by unhealthy fixations, Bret spirals into paranoia and isolation as the relationship between the Trawler and Robert Mallory hurtles inexorably toward a collision.