Alaska State Trooper Nathan Active is marooned in the Inupiat village of Chukchi. He is Inupiat but was raised in Anchorage by white parents. He's just biding his time until his transfer back to the world. His birth mother lives in town and everyone is trying to set him up with a mate. The weather is cold and bleak and it seems like a pretty boring exile in the tundra until the town is rocked by two suicides in one week. Both men worked at a copper mine that is the economic engine of the area. Nathan starts to investigate while the other troopers are involved in other villages and his boss is on leave in Anchorage. The pace is slow in the narrative but then picks up once Nathan starts talking to folks at the mine. Things start to happen as the power brokers call in favors and try to halt any further questions. Nathan initially comes off as inexperienced and naive but soon blossoms into an effective and powerful negotiator who by the end of the book has out maneuvered a multi-national company.