After a storm, a crushed migrant worker is found floating among headless walrus near a Bering Sea village in Alaska. His mysterious death sucks Camilla Mac Cleary, a young anthropologist from Berkeley, and Nick John, a Yup'ik Eskimo from the Yukon River, into the shadowy dangers of black market ivory and the ancient prophecies of Qeng'aq, a legendary shaman, who predicted disasters a century before. This first novel of Nick and Camilla's partnership is followed by others in the Alaska mystery series, Judas Wolf, Bear Child, and Seal's Blood.