"Alex Mcknight has a souvenir of his days as a cop - a bullet lodged too near his heart to be removed. He also has a guilty conscience about the death of his partner in that same shooting, and now he is left alone in his spartan log cabin, taking his meals at the nearby roadhouse, finding company there when he wants it - and not when he doesn't.".

"But it doesn't work that way. When a young Native American woman comes to him asking for help, McKnight feels bound to protect her. He ensconces her in an unoccupied cabin that he owns - and finds her gone the following morning.".

"McKnight is convinced that the woman's ex-lover, a particularly vicious member of the reservation hockey team, who McKnight outfaced in a recent game, has kidnapped her. Fearing for her life, he begins a frantic search, swatting away his self-appointed "partner" - the town's favorite fool - until the man surprises him.

It's a search that leads to encounters with a variety of unsavory types, each with his own agenda, and to some extremely unpleasant discoveries by McKnight himself as he forcibly learns that criminal sadism knows no geographic boundaries and that the motives of both good and evil people can lead to disaster."--BOOK JACKET.