Cork O'Connor has lost everything he once valued: his wife wants a divorce, and he has been fired from his job as Sheriff because of an ugly, racially-charged incident that left his mentor dead. Clandestine meetings with the beautiful Molly Nurmi and his children are the only lights in his life, but these are not enough to break through his profound emotional isolation.
As a wild blizzard buries the lakeside town, a despised, though very influential member of the community is found dead, and a young Ojibwe Indian boy seems to have run away from home at the same time. Cork senses something is wrong, and this feeling intensifies when a sage old Indian man hitches a ride and warns him that the Windigo is near. Cork remembers the legend of the Windigo from his youth - the cruel spirit with a heart of ice who calls his victims names before he kills them, and who can only be killed if his victim lets his own heart turn to ice, becoming the Windigo himself. Cork has never been one to take old Indian legends to heart . . . until now.
