In his latest adventure, professor and sometime amateur sleuth Thomas Martindale leaves campus to sign on as a science writer for a research expedition to the Arctic for a change of pace from the often mundane world of the university. The work is unique: an attempt to study ice as a tool for national security. Soon after the members of the team board a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker for the journey to their base--a remote island in the Beaufort Sea--Russian scientists join the group with unpleasant consequences.
The rivalry turns deadly after the icebreaker leaves and people start dying under mysterious circumstances. The arrival of an Arab terrorist and a marauding polar bear complicate life on the small island. An early freeze traps the men and women of the expedition as a massive ice shield closes in. The events oddly parallel a similar (and real) disaster Martindale is writing about, which took place in 1897.
