Mary Benton, traveling alone by train, arrived in the small town of Seven Lakes, Minnesota, on December 5, 1925. In the early evening of December 22, Mary left her room at The Seven Lakes Grand Hotel, venturing out into the middle of a severe snowstorm, never to return. Authorities at the time ruled her disappearance, an accidental death due to exposure even though they never recovered her body. A mysterious letter arriving at the office of Minneapolis detective Joel Vick, nearly ninety years after her disappearance, suggested there may have been something else at play on that fateful night.

Joel Vick, a Minneapolis detective, down on his luck, receives an opportunity in the form of a mysterious letter delivered to his office. The letter alludes to a 90-year-old missing person case that took place in the small northern Minnesota town of Seven Lakes. Joel, as a child, had spent numerous summers in Seven Lakes vacationing with his family. With a downturn in requests for his services locally, and his natural curiosity aroused, Vick drives up to have a look at the town he hadn't visited in over 40 years. Initially frustrated that he had wasted his time after visiting the person who wrote the letter, Vick discovers something unusual that changes his mind about leaving. Vick, digging further into the case, determines that the investigation performed at the time of her disappearance to be entirely inadequate. Using his investigative skills, Vick stitches together a story of a beautiful young woman who is looking for a new start, but unable to escape her past. The story set against the backdrop of severe winter snowstorms, extreme cold, and a robust ice harvesting industry that flourished in the decades before refrigeration rendered it obsolete.

Joseph Benedict, born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, spent eight years in the US. Air Force before joining the corporate world. For the past nine years, Benedict has been a writer who tells his company narratives through articles, features, and press releases. Benedict loves the creative process of telling a good story and maintains a blog where he publishes his works of fiction and daily human struggles. Benedict currently makes his home in Camden, SC.