Up north,
the summers are brief --
and winter, like death,
is cold and long . . .
Recovering from knee surgery that will cause her to miss the upcoming
dogsled racing season, champion "musher" Jessie Arnold feels empty and
bored -- so she grabs an opportunity to fill her days manning the
Iditarod booth at the Alaska State Fair. But murder becomes an
attraction here as well -- an especially brutal one -- when the corpse
of a small-time hoodlum slain by a double-blade axe blow to the skull
turns up on the fairgrounds. Jessie shouldn't get involved, having
already seen too much violent death in her lifetime. But strange
connections are linking the killing with a child's kidnapping . . . and
with the sudden disappearance of her own beloved lead sled dog. Soon
friends old and new will be pulled in as well when the unthinkable
occurs: Jessie herself vanishes without a trace.