Beyond Ice, Beyond Death

Chicago homicide detective Nora Callum is, by her own description, cranky, moralistic, self-conscious, and a devoted single mother. She is also a very good cop, whose peg leg - the result of injuries sustained during a shoot-out - only adds to her determination to be the first at any crime scene, and the most dogged member of her squad. Nora's investigative talents are sorely tested when a body found frozen in the ice and snow of a typically pitiless Chicago winter turns out to be that of Edward Boyes, a NASA scientist. The only identifying elements on the corpse are a watch and a signet ring, which make cryptic references to "The Golden Swan" and "Phobos I." Phobos is a space probe, a joint undertaking of the Russian and American governments. But something's gone drastically why else would Boyes be murdered, and his Russian lover confined to a prison cell? As Nora looks into Boyes's background, she is struck by the intensity of the lovers' devotion, as evidenced in letters and videotapes; it is in direct proportion to the loneliness in her own life. Supported by her partner, Art Campbell, her daughter, Meg, and her good friend Paris Viveka, a call girl trying to go straight, Nora confronts the crisis of her career when the accidental shooting of a suspected drug kingpin leads to her suspension from the force, and she must continue the investigation into the death of Edward Boyes on her own.