On a snowy Christmas Eve, Detective Shane Lindstrom is on his way home to Whidbey Island on the Port Townsend ferry. A few miles away, a woman's body is dumped by the roadside in Greenbank. For Lindstrom and his young associate, Kat Brown, it looks like a straightforward case. But the more they dig into it, the deeper the mystery grows. They find themselves tangled in a complex web of online dating, two-timing spouses, voyeurs, evangelical hucksters, a creepy backwoods gnome and a Russian, mail-order bride. Is the key suspect being framed? Or did he murder his wife in a fit of passion and temper he'll regret for the rest of his life?