Wildlife biologist Alex Carter is back, fighting for
endangered species in the Canadian Arctic and battling for her life in this
action-packed follow-up to
A Solitude of Wolverines
, “a true stunner of a
thriller debut” (James Rollins) and “a great read” (Nevada Barr).
Fresh off her wolverine study in Montana, wildlife biologist
Alex Carter lands a job studying a threatened population of polar bears in the
Canadian Arctic. Embedded with a small team of Arctic researchers, she tracks
the majestic bears by air, following them over vast, snowy terrain, spending
days leaning precariously out of a helicopter with a tranquilizer gun, until
she can get down on the ice to examine them up close.
But as her study progresses, and she gathers data on the
health of individual bears, things start to go awry. Her helicopter pilot quits
unexpectedly, equipment goes missing, and a late-night intruder breaks into her
lab and steals the samples she’s collected. She realizes that someone doesn’t
want her to complete her study, but Alex is not easily deterred.
Managing to find a replacement pilot, she returns to the icy
expanses of Hudson Bay. But the helicopter catches fire in midflight, forcing
the team to land on a vast sheet of white far from civilization. Surviving on
the frozen landscape is difficult enough, but as armed assailants close in on
snowmobiles, Alex must rely on her skills and tenacity to survive this
onslaught and carry out her mission.