The fourth entry to John Straley''s Alaska P.I. series finds Cecil Younger with a contract to kill.
Cecil Younger is a man who takes comfort in the absurdity of the universe, and the universe is obliging him when he gets a call from his lawyer and psychiatrist, who offers him a job. A client wants to hire Younger to kill someone. Though common sense tells him murder just isn''t a good career move, his finances tell him it can''t hurt to meet his potential client, hoping he can succeed in appeasing the him—without a dead body.
Joined by the usual cast of misfits—his lawyer/psychiatrist, Dickie Stein; his girlfriend, Jane Marie; and his ward, Todd—Cecil investigates a murder that brings him back to the Centralia Massacre of 1919, an event in Alaskan history that seems to still be reaching into the present—and its dark, chilly grasp may extend to Cecil himself.