From a very early age, Emily’s father has mentored her in criminology, and she has a promising career as a detective in the city of Manchester, New Hampshire. Now a two-year veteran of the police force, she is gifted in her investigative skills, but empathy for innocent victims causes her insomnia, guilt, and symptoms of disassociation. She has turned away from God for His allowance of horrible things to happen to children and good people. Her effort to temporarily take leave and re-group and at the same time stand in for soon to be vacationing, Constable Pete Hines, in his peaceful little town, sends her straight into a foreign and frightening environment of wild animals and poachers and to the aid of a rookie game warden who is in imminent danger of losing his life. In her struggle to maintain her own equilibrium, what she didn’t count on is falling in love with Daniel and also with this (in her mother’s words) poverty-row town. Daniel is a flawed and sacrificial hero. Though agile and intuitive in the ways of the woods, this PHD graduate in Wildlife Biology only became a game officer so he could be near his grieving foster mother as she endures the death of her biological son. Daniels authority is put to the test because the previous game warden looked the other way on poaching, and the poor people of this area liked it better that way. Here in Kaskitesiw, hunting is an equalizer and problems are resolved within the darkness of trees. Gently and not so gently, Emily encourages Daniel through physical healing. Yet her guilt festers for the victims she wasn’t in time to save and depression, over what humankind can do at its worst, threatens to take her from her career, Daniel, and even her own life. Daniel must find trust in God once more before he can begin to help Emily. But when he does it seems as if he is too late.
