Long after others had given up on Katie Pine as just another runaway teenager, her dead body is found, and then when another death occurs, John Cardinal and his new partner Lisa Delorme start investigating the possibility of a serial killer in the cold of a Canadian winter.
Discovering a shooting attack that has completely eliminated a young woman's memory, detectives John Cardinal and Lisa Delorme pursue leads in Algonquin Bay during the height of the black fly season in order to safeguard her life.
The victims, visitors from Russia, are in Algonquin Bay attending the annual fur auction. This is by no means a routine murder investigation as Cardinal soon discovers, but a horrific piece of a very twisted puzzle.