A man brutally murders another in a peculiar hunting incident-and then proceeds to assume his persona, his life, and his wife.

When a petty argument with an arrogant stranger deep in a Wisconsin forest over who killed a deer escalates to murder, playwright Andrew Neville's life becomes a tangled web of deceit-and self-deception. Back in hometown Chicago, Neville attends the funeral of the man he's murdered and meets his widow, Claudia, and her 3-year-old son. Neville gradually insinuates himself into the widow's confidence and conceives a plan to seize the victim's life-his wife, his son, his work, his wealth, and even his persona and appearance. Neville will become he man he killed. It appears nothing can stop him-except the obnoxious Chicago PI who's determined to prove that Neville and Claudia murdered her husband together.