While searching for a missing Siberian husky, Cambridge, Massachusetts, malamute trainer Holly Winter stumbles upon the corpse of a woman calling herself Holly Winter and investigates a crime that could be linked to the town's third Holly Winter, a dog-hating academic.

Holly Winter becomes caught up in the middle of the mob's latest vendetta when she takes a job training a new puppy belonging to a wiseguy with a nasty reputation on both sides of the law.