KATE SHUGAK is a native Aleut working as a private investigator in Alaska. She's 5 foot 1 inch tall, carries a scar that runs from ear to ear across her throat and owns a half-wolf, half-husky dog named Mutt. Resourceful, strong-willed, defiant, Kate is tougher than your average heroine - and she needs to be to survive the worst the Alaskan wilds can throw at her. A GRAVE DENIED: When Len Dreyer's body is discovered, frozen solid, in an ice cave beneath a remote glacier with a hole from a shotgun blast in his chest, no one has even noticed that he has been missing for months.