Former Army sniper Bill Tatum likes his new job. As Deputy Sheriff of Mineral County, Colorado, he gets to ride a horse and wear a cool hat, but he never expected to find a dead woman in the hills behind his cabin. Tatum never expected to find himself on the wrong side of the crosshairs, either. The woman with the bullet hole in her temple was a reporter from the Rocky Mountain News, and her journal reveals secret affairs, political corruption, and a pending environmental disaster. But Tatum has little time to ponder motive, because the bullets are flying. No one is safe from the deadly accurate vengeance of a well-placed rifle bullet. As Tatum muddles through the deception and lies in his once-innocent alpine village, the sniper stays one step ahead of him, killing mercilessly, then disappearing into the Colorado wilderness, eliminating carefully chosen targets with impunity. Tatum cannot overcome the sniper's meticulous planning and penchant for public assassinations. When his suspects fill up the county morgue instead of the jail, Tatum realizes he must fall back on his training as an Army sniper to regain Superior Position and stop the terror from the ridge above.