When a young boy and woman vanish in Palm Beach County, Florida, a rogue alligator is believed to have eaten them alive. Thomas Jefferson "TJ" Forte, US Fish & Wildlife officer and ex-Navy pilot, is tasked with finding the beast but he's skeptical that an alligator is the killer. His doubts are reinforced when the boy's body is found and it's covered with strange bite marks. A crocodile becomes the principal suspect after one is reported missing from a local zoo and the enigmatic Dr. Samantha "Sam" Brown, a reptile biologist who left the Stanford faculty to live on a remote Florida lake, joins TJ in the hunt for the carnivore. The missing woman's remains are discovered and her husband offers a reward for killing the crocodile. Armed fortune seekers descend on Palm Beach, although one is looking for a different animal. Doug Kirkland, tattooed ex-con, runs an animal trafficking ring. He knows the maneater's true identity and he's determined to find her and protect his operation. He released the crocodile to throw off the searchers and is murdering his accomplices to cover his trail. Only he knows the real maneater is a Komodo dragona deadly and highly intelligent beast. The crocodile is tracked and killed but no human remains are found in its stomach. TJ and Sam are left scrambling to find a new animal that fits the elusive creature's profile. They finally piece together the clues and race to find the reptile before she strikes again. The trail leads them into the sugar cane farms and tropical marshes of South Florida where they find themselves being hunted by both Kirkland and the Komodo dragon.