When the body of local environmental activist Paul Robichaud washes up on the bank of a river in the small northern town of Burnt River, blunt-force wounds to his head suggesting murder, Mark Roth is jarred out of his retirement reverie and drawn into the mystery. Who dumped Robichaud into the frigid spring run-off?

Profoundly hard-of-hearing after a career in musical performance, and equally disappointed with finding himself alone in his world after the death of his beloved wife, Mark stubbornly and clumsily puts himself in harm’s way to draw out the truth. Constable Jeremy Roth, Mark’s long-lost cousin, is the muscle of the group, patrolling the northern highways for the local police detachment and investigating on the ground. Mark’s beloved daughter, Stephanie, building her name as a criminologist at the university in Thunder Bay, gets to the details of the matter using her academic credentials and her innate puzzle-solving instincts.