Ozone Beach, Washington, where the clams dance and the chowder's poisoned: Timber queen Madge Leroux's body has washed up on frigid backwater Ozone Beach in Washington State, the last place on Earth Venus Diamond wants to visit. Recently returned from steamy, exotic adventures tracking poachers in East Asia, and hanging out in sophisticated nightclubs, Venus has brought home malaria fevers and a jaundice the shade of hot mustard. When her boss at the US Fish & Wildlife Service assigns Venus to explain how Madge Leroux's corpse managed to beach on a federal wildlife preserve, Venus finds a link between East and West that suddenly connects her two worlds; she discovers a mutilated brown bear carcass that exposes black market greed and atrocities she had previously thought only occurred outside her native land. If she exposes the perpetrators, she could pay with her life, but Diamond never - ever - abandons a promising scent, the more dangerous the better. On the other hand, Seattle's rain might just convince Venus to flee before she drowns - or is killed in the same manner her nemesis kills brown bears.