A Gift Before Dying

In a hauntingly atmospheric novel set against the unforgiving landscape of the Arctic Circle, a disgraced police investigator discovers that his path to redemption is paved with ice--and blood.

"Kempt, who worked as a criminal lawyer in the Arctic for almost two decades, conjures this forbidding landscape and its residents with artful authority."--The Wall Street Journal

After a botched high-profile murder investigation, Corporal Elderick Cole is exiled to the remote, rugged landscape of Nunavut, a vast territory in the Arctic Circle known for its untamed beauty, frigid temperatures, and endless winter nights. With his family having severed all ties, Cole waits out the result of a civil lawsuit alone--the wrong verdict could end what's left of his flailing career.

His bleak existence takes a sinister turn when he discovers the hanging body of Pitseolala, a troubled Inuit girl whom he had sworn to protect. Her death dredges up demons he thought he'd buried along with the scars of a fractured marriage and the aching divide between him and his estranged daughter.

As Cole's life unravels--and with it, the fragile thread of his investigation, he turns to Pitseolala's younger brother, Maliktu, a fellow outsider. It's then that Cole uncovers what binds them--a singular mission to find her killer.

Against fierce backlash, Cole's overriding desire to redeem just one aspect of his otherwise failed life becomes an obsession--and he's willing to break every rule in his unyielding pursuit of justice and the smallest shred of redemption.