After Dr. John McKenzie destroys the equipment of a fellow member, the wolf-watching group to which he and his long-suffering wife belong are glad to see him go, tired of his tirades. Then Lew Ferris, sheriff of the Loon Lake area of northern Wisconsin, gets a call about a couple of missing wolf watchers—the McKenzies—whom the state patrol thinks might be in her area. Lew calls part-time deputy Ray Pradt, fisherman extraordinaire and the best tracker she knows, to help in the search. Ray, who coaches a high school muskie fishing team, has other things on his mind—he’s furious that one of the members of his team has been threatened by someone demanding he cheat in order to give the man’s sports-betting business an edge. Turning his attention to Lew’s problem, Ray has a hunch the McKenzies are in Robideaux Forest, and he and Lew set off. Seeing that an old loggers’ cabin has been rebuilt and is now housing crates of high-powered weapons, Lew calls in a larger police presence in the hope of catching the gunrunners. Lew is in a long-term romantic relationship with dentist Doc Osborne, who shares her love of fly-fishing. His house is on a lake and across the road from Ray’s trailer, where Lew meets back up with the deputy, who has some new ideas about where the McKenzies may be. Sure enough, Ray finds them shot dead and partially buried, presumably by gunrunners who caught them near the cabin. When someone takes a shot at Lew through Doc’s window, it only spurs them on to solve the murder, catch the gunrunners, and unravel the sports-betting scam.
