It was a clear, starry night in Glacier National Park. Fourteen-year-old Ted Systead and his father were camping peacefully beneath the rugged peaks and sweeping sky when the unimaginable happened: Ted's father was mauled by a grizzly bear and dragged to his death. Now, twenty years later, as special agent for the Department of the Interior, Ted is called back to investigate a crime that echoes the horror of that night. Only this time, the victim was tied to a tree before the animal's attack. Ted teams up with one of the park officers--a man named Monty, whose pleasant exterior masks an all-too-vivid knowledge of the area. Residents of the nearby community are less than forthcoming. Suspicious of outsiders and intimately connected to the wilderness that surrounds them, they confront their fellow man and nature with equal measures of reverence and brutality. As the days pass with no clear answers, not only is human life at stake, so too is that of a majestic creature who carries with it valuable evidence. Ted's search for truth takes him far into the wilderness, on the trail of a killer, and eventually to a shocking and unexpectedly personal conclusion.