During the height of a particularly brutal Vermont winter one morning a womans body is found hanging high above the interstate The woman found with the word dyke carved on her chest is quickly determined to be the victim of a brutal murder That alone is enough to bring in Joe Gunther and his VBI Vermont Bureau of Investigation team But when the victim is identified not only as a state senator bus as an intimate friend of the governors it unleashes a publicity maelstrom that makes the investigation makes a difficult investigation more challenging While the anti-lesbian message is an obvious feint meant to mislead investigators it does reveal that the governor is gay and forces her to publicly acknowledge that fact In the meantime while the publicity rages on to even greater heights the police begin to focus intensely on the dead senators life One thing they uncover is that she had a fondness for recreational marijuana In Vermont however neither lesbianism nor marijuana use are the stuff of murder Its up to Gunther and his team to cut through this particular stack of weed to find out not just who but why.
