The first day of spring: A bad day to be in Alaska.
Breakup: the time of year when Alaska awakens from its Arctic slumber. Snows melt. Rivers flood. Winter's secrets emerge.
This spring, the retreating ice reveals a corpse, and a starving she-bear mauls a woman to death. The corpse matches the description of a man missing since last year, the woman has been so badly mutilated she's barely recognisable.
Investigator Kate Shugak will dodge bullets, bears and a plane crash before she realises that, somehow, there is a connection between the two deaths.