The year is 1896 and Sherlock Holmes and his esteemed companion, Dr. John Watson, have once again been summoned to Minnesota, where winter holds the "dead tough" city of St. Paul in its icy grip. Jonathan Upton, scion of one of the city's richest families, has vanished on the eve of his wedding, which was to have taken place in the immense glittering ice palace being built for the annual Winter Carnival. Brought in to investigate the disappearance by James J. Hill, St. Paul's most powerful man and a close friend of young Upton's father, Holmes and Watson soon make a horrific discovery that uncovers a flurry of clues, all distractingly opaque.
Why did Upton's fiancee give back her bridal dress? What dark secrets lurk behind the comfortable facade of the Muskrat Club, where the young swells of St. Paul gather to drink and gamble? Who is the brilliant "Spider" at the center of the affair? And does the ice palace itself hold the key to the ghastly secret within its gleaming walls? In this fiendishly complex case, Holmes finds himself taxed to the limit - and is quite surprised when a local saloonkeeper, a large-hearted and cunning Irishman with a devilish sense of humor, beats him to a clue.
But, as Holmes seen discovers, no one knows St. Paul - and everyone in it - as well as Shadwell Rafferty, and the two develop enormous, though at times begrudging respect for each other. Soon one must save the other from death's door, as they brave the Mississippi River's frigid waters and confront the villain amid the roar of rockets, in one of the most thrilling episodes "Watson" ever committed to paper.
