Professor Jeffrey Bird, investigating unusual seismological disturbances in Austria while there for a conference, has disappeared in an avalanche while skiing with a colleague. Or so the news says. But what about the cable sent to Mrs. Bird by his hospitalized (and apparently off his head) friend: "IT WAS TCE GHOSTS"? In no time at all, Mrs. Bird has packed up her ouija board and bundled herself and Oriole, 18, Perry, 13, and Mab, 11, of to Austria to find their father. When the Birds arrive in Riesenmoos, the high Alpine village where he was last seen, not only does the Hotel Gappenwirt claim to be full up, with no reservation in the name of Bird, but nowhere are there answers about Professor Bird.What is making the villagers so skittish? What can the odd Herr Doktor Pfnür and his (also Doktor) wife, owners of the mountaineering school in its forbidding castle, have to do with the curious series of earthquakes, avalanches and floods throughout the Alps. Is there a scientific explanation for both Perry's toothache and the Riesenmoos cows running dry? Is the handsome ski instructor with an eye on Oriole a hero or a villain? And are the frightening Ice Giants out of old legends who haunt the hillsides real? AND, can Mab and Perry (with the help of Oriole and her two young men) unravel the dastardly plot and save the world from the Fairweather Insurance Company?Why do people shy away from their questions?anished under mysterious circumstances, and a determined Mrs. Bird sets off with their three children in tow-- and her ouija board in her suitcase-- to find him.The professor was last seen in the high Alpine village of Riesenmoos, but when Mrs. Bird and Perry, Mab and Oriole arrive there, the villagers have never heard of him and the Hotel Gappenwirt has never heard of Mrs. Bird or her reservation. Not a room is to be found anywhere in the village. Deeply suspicious, the Birds search further afield, and find the Strumpf farm, where young Kani Strumpf rents them the two spare rooms-- much to his mother's distress when she finds out.Mrs. Bird is right. Something is deeply wrong in Riesenmoos, but what? What are the Ice Ghosts the villagers dread?.