In the Barrens, a vast wilderness in northern Canada bordering the Arctic Circle, night consumes every hour of the wintertime. Humans are scarce; ferocious predators roam openly. Locals say spirits do, too.

First year cop Tana Larsson doesn’t brain the dark and quiet. Five months pregnant and hoping to escape the errors of her past, she takes a post in Twin Rivers, population 320. Probably here she will get peace and community on her behalf child.

But with her first-class out of commission payment, Tana becomes the sole officer in 17,500 square mls. One bitter night time, she gets a call about the fatal wolf mauling of two students, and the only path to reach the remote scene is usually to enlist assistance from the arrogant, irritatingly attractive Cameron “Crash” O’Halloran, a local bush pilot using a shady status for smuggling and a past cloaked in shadow.

When the macabre picture they uncover suggests violence a lot more sinister than animal, Tana must trust Crash if she really wants to protect the town-and herself-from the evil that lurks in the frozen dark.