Wildlife biologist Alex Carter is back, fighting forendangered species in the Canadian Arctic and battling for her life in thisaction-packed follow-up to A Solitude of Wolverines, "a true stunner of athriller debut" (James Rollins) and "a great read" (Nevada Barr).Fresh off her wolverine study in Montana, wildlife biologistAlex Carter lands a job studying a threatened population of polar bears in theCanadian Arctic. Embedded with a small team of Arctic researchers, she tracksthe majestic bears by air, following them over vast, snowy terrain, spendingdays leaning precariously out of a helicopter with a tranquilizer gun, untilshe can get down on the ice to examine them up close. But as her study progresses, and she gathers data on thehealth of individual bears, things start to go awry. Her helicopter pilot quitsunexpectedly, equipment goes missing, and a late-night intruder breaks into herlab and steals the samples she's collected. She realizes that someone doesn'twant her to complete her study, but Alex is not easily deterred. Managing to find a replacement pilot, she returns to the icyexpanses of Hudson Bay. But the helicopter catches fire in midflight, forcingthe team to land on a vast sheet of white far from civilization. Surviving onthe frozen landscape is difficult enough, but as armed assailants close in onsnowmobiles, Alex must rely on her skills and tenacity to survive thisonslaught and carry out her mission.