Tony Moretti, a New Orleans attorney, returns to his childhood home on the Wolf River in Mississippi to defend a surly hermit, "the Witch," accused of killing the son of a prominent judge. Tony wants to prove her innocence because she saved him from a gator attack twenty years earlier and will do whatever it takes to win the case, even though all the evidence points to his client, Clarissa Saucier. He begins working with a young attorney, Harley Bonham, to support her claim that she didn't commit the murder. Their first attempt to earn Clarissa's freedom is through a preliminary hearing, but the judge rejects their appeal for a dismissal of the charges against Clarissa or to release her on bail. With a trial many months away and Clarissa struggling to cope with being locked up, Tony and Harley accelerate the process by trying to lure the killers out of hiding. Their actions provoke a vicious opponent who takes this battle for justice beyond the walls of the courtroom and into the dangerous waters of the Wolf.