Determined Black man lands in the least-Black state. A spirited White woman welcomes him. Their friendship triggers racial violence on a spectacular landscape.

Dawson Kolokog grew up playing football in a rough neighborhood of Long Beach, California. It helped him cope with a family tragedy, and he’s tough enough to be recruited for the Montana State University team. He has culture shock landing in a place that’s very White and still wild. Rose Fontaine grew up in Montana oil fields and, as she’s also wounded emotionally, she finds some relief making her living outdoors on horseback. When a murder causes bad blood between Dawson and Rose, nevertheless, they have to hunt the murderer together, dealing with White supremacists and biased cops. In the turmoil of shifting relationships, horse rides in stormy weather, and an epic struggle on an almost-frozen lake, it feels like everybody is on thin ice.

“A Powerfull Storyteller…”

Denver Post

“Ring knows nature as well as he knows low life.”

Outside Magazine

Ray Ring is the author of three previous novels with major publishers – Arizona Kiss, Peregrine Dream, and Telluride Smile. He earned a dozen national journalism awards, mostly for analyzing environmental politics, and for going undercover in a prison where he was assaulted by a prison gang. He and his wife, Linda Platts, spent twenty years in Montana. Now they live in Tucson, where they enjoy glimpses of bobcats in the yard or on the roof.

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