Synopsis
for
Stone Cold Dead

    The plot of this mystery/thriller moves from Brooklyn to Grand Traverse Bay in Michigan.  The story deals with spousal and child abuse in both an American and a Native American family.
    The story begins in Brooklyn as Dave and Kelly Abrams are leaving for their summer house in Michigan.  Kelly has reluctantly agreed to permit Allie, her daughter, to spend a couple of weeks with Michael, Allie's father and Kelly's ex-husband. Michael has just been released from prison.
    After arriving in Michigan, Dave and Kelly visit an Ojibwe gift shop, near a casino run by the tribe. In the shop, they meet Frankie Asebou whose face is bruised, as though she had been beaten.  Kelly offers Dave's legal assistance, but Frankie denies that she is in danger.  Then, Frankie's husband, Charlie Williams, is found dead on a nearby beach.  Dave undertakes to defend Frankie, who has confessed to the murder.
    Meanwhile, Kelly who has been growing increasingly anxious about Allie,  returns to Brooklyn and finds Michael's apartment empty, but also discovers a letter Allie had tried to send to her which says that Allie and her friend Grace are going to drive across Canada to Michigan.  Kelly sets out after them, not knowing that Michael is already on their trail.
    Robin, Frankie and Charlie's daughter, is found huddled not far from her father's body.  Frankie says she shot her husband in her house after he raped and beat her, but she cannot explain how he got to the beach.  Robin apparently witnessed the shooting, but she claims not to know anything more than the fact that her parents were violently arguing with each other, as they often did.  The gun is missing, as is one of Robin's sneakers.
    Bartko, the prosecutor, wants to wrap up the case as quickly as possible because he is about to arrest John Leaping Frog, an Ojibwe manager of the tribe's casino, for laundering money through the casino's substantial cash flow.  Bartko is confident that Frankie's confession, plus her unsavory background as a prostitute and alcoholic, will make his case for him
    Aided by the practical expertise of Kelly's uncle John,  a retired cop from Chicago,  and the spiritual wisdom of Livonia Walkingstick, an Ojibwe storyteller, Dave begins to unravel Charlie's murder.  He finds out that Charlie was seen in a bar after Frankie supposedly shot him, and that Charlie picked up a woman there, whom he took to the beach, not knowing that Robin was hiding under a blanket in the back of his pickup.  John and Dave find Robin's missing sneaker in that truck, which is now parked on the property of the woman Charlie had picked up in the bar.
    Kelly catches up to Allie, Grace, and Michael in a motel, half way across Canada.  Michael has seduced Grace. Kelly gets the impression that he, too, is heading "on business" toward Michigan.  She sends Grace home, and takes Allie with her to Michigan.
    Michael's business has already been partially completed with the murder of Charlie, which he had contracted out to Frankie's brother Leonard. Michael works for the crime operation that uses the casino to launder money.  Charlie is a minor player who could expose the mob's connection to the casino. Michael is heading to Michigan to dispose of Leaping Frog.  He sets up the murder in a brutally bizarre fashion, involving Leaping Frog's young mistress and pointing to Leonard as the murderer.  He calls up Kelly at the time of the murder, asking to say good-night to Allie, but also establishing an alibi. 
    After the murder of Leaping Frog, he starts stalking Allie, insisting that he will reclaim his daughter.  Meanwhile, Leonard is looking for an opportunity to pay Michael back for setting him up as Leaping Frog's murderer. 
    Livonia convinces Robin to tell the truth about the night her father was killed.  Robin uncovers the gun she shot at her father and then hid at the beach beneath a pile of fossil stones.  She does not know that her shot missed and that Leonard  finished the job.  Michael manages to elude a police guard and forces his way into Dave and Kelly's house to take Allie.  However, he and Allie are then captured by Leonard, who brings them back to the beach.  There, Michael saves Allie's life by sacrificing his own, and Leonard is taken into custody by the sheriff.
    The novel closes with Livonia telling Robin and Allie the story of the fossil stones.    .