The discovery of a dead body and a brutal bear attack may be linked, and it's up to Kate Shugak to investigate in Breakup. The first day of Spring: a bad day to be in Alaska.

Breakup: the time of year when Alaska awakens from its Arctic slumber. Snows melt. Rivers flood.

Winter's secrets emerge. This spring, the retreating ice reveals a corpse, and a starving she-bear mauls a woman to death. The corpse matches the description of a man missing since last year, the woman has been so badly mutilated she's barely recognisable.

Investigator Kate Shugak will dodge bullets, bears and a plane crash before she realizes that, somehow, there is a connection between the two deaths.