Evie Kavoonah, a young mother-to-be, and her fiance, Dr. Todd Brenner, are on a short-run flight when their plane runs out of gas and hits the big empty beneath, instantly killing them both. Chukchi State Trooper Nathan Active doubts he'll find anything amiss when his close friend, Cowboy Decker, asks him to look into the possibility of foul play. But Evie was like a daughter to Cowboy, who trained her to pilot, and he insists there's no way his protegee made a fatal mistake that day. Nathan reluctantly plays along and discovers that Cowboy's instincts are correct--the malfunction that led to the crash was carefully planned, and several locals have motives for targeting the pair. Meanwhile, Nathan's wife, Gracie, is pregnant, but her memories of domestic abuse in years past trigger such severe trauma that she doesn't know if she can go through with another childbirth. Nathan must support her and their adopted daughter, Nita, while managing an increasingly complex and dangerous murder case.

Author Biography

Stan Jones is a native of Alaska. He has worked as an award-winning journalist and a bush pilot. He is the author of five other mysteries in the acclaimed Nathan Active series, including White Sky, Black Ice, Shaman Pass, Village of the Ghost Bears, Tundra Kill, and Frozen Sun. Patricia Watts began writing fiction after a 20-year career as a journalist in Texas, Hawaii, and Alaska, and a decade as a human rights investigator in Anchorage. She is also the author of Watchdogs and The Frayer, noir suspense novels set in Fairbanks, Alaska. She now lives in San Diego, where she is working on her next novel.