Along with bear researcher Joan Rand and a volatile and unpredictable teenaged boy, Anna hikes the backcountry seeking signs of the bears. Soon, the boy is missing and a camper is dead, her neck snapped by a single blow, the flesh of her face cut away with a knife. Feeling betrayed by both nature and humanity, Anna must find the beast stalking the trails -- leading her readers deep into a gripping wilderness life-or-death mystery.