Alaska's worst fire in decades left behind 125,000 acres of razed forest, three feet of ash...

and one unburnt corpse. A ten-year-old boy has hired Kate Shugak to find his father. Daniel Seabolt has been missing since the summer, but his disappearance has never been reported.

The boy's grandfather, the Right Reverend Pastor Simon Seabolt, has forbidden the tight-knit community even to speak Daniel's name. Unfortunately for the boy, Kate is already investigating the body of a man found buried under the ash of last year's forest fire. At first she thinks this man was caught out in the blaze, but the coroner returns cause of death as anaphylactic shock.

And although the body is missing clothes and shoes, it is untouched by the fire...