When the Discover Cryptids crew arrives in Arkansas to investigate the Ozark Howler, possibly an escaped exotic big cat, they find themselves in direct competition with a rival television crew for the program Bump in the Night--but when they are examining signs of the monster Gabe falls into the river and is swept away.

In 1958 Little Rock, Arkansas, painfully shy twelve-year-old Marlee sees her city and family divided over school integration, but her friendship with Liz, a new student, helps her find her voice and fight against racism.

In the summer of 1986, eleven-year-old April Grace, who lives on a rural Arkansas farm with her family, across a field from her grandmother, has her sense of Christian charity tested when a snooty couple from San Francisco moves into a dilapidated house down the road and her grandmother takes up with a loud, obnoxious, and suspicious-acting Texan.

When the Discover Cryptids crew arrives in Arkansas to investigate the Ozark Howler, possibly an escaped exotic big cat, they find themselves in direct competition with a rival television crew for the program Bump in the Night--but when they are examining signs of the monster Gabe falls into the river and is swept away.