Forensic pathologist Corrie Swanson investigates a brutal crime from 136 years ago. The key to the crime may just lie in a lost Sherlock Holmes story, a tale allegedly so horrifying that its author never dared publish it.

Colorado, 1876: At a remote mining camp high in the Rocky Mountains, eleven silver miners are killed, their bodies horribly mutilated, flesh devoured. Bear attack? Not everyone thinks so.

136 years later, the cemetery where the miners were buried is being cleared for new development. Forensic pathologist Corrie Swanson has arranged to study the bones. What she discovers will expose a conspiracy that's as lethal today as it was a century ago.

As the winter snows fall, Corrie's life depends on unravelling a dark secret... the key to which may just lie in a lost Sherlock Holmes story, a tale allegedly so horrifying that its author never dared publish it.

"And still they come: fast-moving thrillers from the Preston/Child duo are mounting up in number, but each one has its own individual character" - The Good Book Guide