An undercover Detroit cop navigates a dangerous neighborhood that's surrounded by a containment wall with the help of an ex-con in order to bring down a crime lord and his plot to devastate the entire city.

Sweet young Melanie Blaine returns to her small backwoods country hometown of Gibbington to check on her estranged ex-sheriff father Howard, who's the primary suspect in a series of grisly murders. Nice guy local Jimmy Fuller helps Melanie out. Melanie eventually finds her dad and discovers that something not human and much more sinister than a mere mortal man is responsible for the killings.

Suddenly the US east coast is hit by a type of natural disaster formerly reserved, except after a major earthquake, for the Pacific and Indian ocean rims: tidal waves of the destructive tsunami type. Scientist and fiction author John McAdams attends a national emergency conference which concludes the phenomenon must be man-made, quite possibly abusing the findings of John's secret former Sea Lion project, but who wants to and has the means? Indeed John soon finds himself set-up for a murder and chased. Major destructions mean major contracts for construction and coastal defenses, so building tycoons like Victor Bannister certainly have a considerable interest...