Two backcountry skiers find the body of a young woman embedded in the ice of a remote mountain creek. All through the night, police work with arc lights and chain saws to dig her out. But identification doesn't take as long. Abbie Cooper is wanted for murder and acts of eco-terrorism, and her picture is on law-enforcement computers all across America. But just how did she die? And what was the trail of events that led this joyous, golden child of a loving family so tragically astray?
The High Divide qualifies as a western, given its setting in the Minnesota, Dakota and Montana territories in 1886. The story begins in Minnesota, when Ulysses Pope leaves his house to work on a nearby carpentry job and fails to return. He and his wife, Gretta, had quarreled over his use of their home as security for a bank loan, and the disagreement had hung like a shroud over them for weeks.
Shadowy elements within the State Department secretly cause tensions to flare between Iran and the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. They hope to start a shooting war to increase their own power and profit. At the same time, the conspirators decide to up the ante - by deposing the president of the United States. In a treacherous scheme, they convince the president that he is mentally unstable, and a silent coup d'etat is within their reach.
