It's the bleak midwinter and the Shenandoah Valley is poised on the brink of an unusually icy and snowy season. Alexei Kamarov's body is discovered in a forest within the Picketsville town limits. His driver's license identifies him as Randall Harris. The last Sheriff Ike Schwartz heard of Kamarov, he was reported missing, presumed dead, in Russia, the victim of intelligence game-playing.
Ike is not happy with this piece of his past. Ike's former CIA colleague and friend Charlie Garland asks Ike to keep a lid on the investigation.
Slowly, interagency rivalries surface as local petty criminals vie with international assassins and plotters for attention. All the while, Buffalo Mountain looms in the background. Does the community's violent history have something do with this recent murder? Or is Kamarov's death part of some greater political plot?