Back cover: Tired of the violence of big-city crime, former narcotics agent Frank Carver trades the streets of Seattle for the penny-ante stuff of Oregon's Neskanie National Forest. Work is wonderfully, refreshingly dull for the forest's new law enforcement officer. No shooting. No bodies. No murders. Until the corpse of Nino Alverez, an immigrant worker, is found in the woods by fire dispatcher Ginny Trask. Ginny, in light of her connection sin the area, is soon deputized by Frank.