Haunted. Scarred. Alone. And the nightmare's just beginning.

Of all the end-of-the-world places he could have run to after he was burned, Miles McEwan chose Ross River.

Buried deep in the vast wilderness of the Yukon, it seemed the perfect place to escape the past. Best of all, he could carry on doing what he did best—fighting fire. But five years on, Miles is still troubled by two phantoms of his previous life: the young man whose agonizing death preys on his conscience, and the woman he abandoned as a consequence.

And in the dark forest around Ross River, fire and violence are brewing. As a small blaze becomes an inferno, a group of bear trackers is about to encounter nature in its wildest form. Elsewhere a killer is going about his work, quietly and ruthlessly. As the survivors of the hunting party are picked off one by one and fire rages through the mountains, Miles embarks on a desperate rescue mission, driven by love for a daughter who, until this dangerous summer, had been a perfect stranger.