Kim is taking a vacation at a ski resort in the Austrian Alps. She has become friendly with the young man in the room next to hers. He is Jim and with him he has a 12 year old boy named Roby who clearly adores him. Kim is intrigued by these two as Jim is too young to be Roby's father. Both of them have an interesting quirk of staring at her attentively when she speaks.
While they are all out on the slopes one day Kim is taking some home videos when she ends up capturing an intentional, and fatal, ski accident. That night she finds someone has been in her room and stolen the film out of her camera. Unfortunately for them Kim had changed film and the evidence of the crime is still in her possession.
Kim questions Jim about his relationship to Roby and he tells her a sad story; Roby's father is Jean Paul, a famous skier who owns the resort they are currently staying at. Roby's mother passed away in a car accident while pregnant which caused Roby to be born post-mortem via a c-section. The situation led the hospital staff to believe Roby was mentally disabled and his father rejected him, having him sent to an institution for the mentally disabled.
When Roby was 8 Jim came to work for the institution and correctly suspected that Roby wasn't mentally disabled but deaf. After teaching him sign language Roby began to flourish and was transferred to a school for physically disabled children, with Jim getting a job there to continue taking care of the boy. Jim had brought Roby to the Alps for two main reasons; to show Roby that, with his lip reading ability, he can live a normal life without people stigmatizing him as disabled, and with the hope that they will run into his father and he will either accept the child or allow Jim to adopt him.
One night after putting Roby to bed Kim and Jim see two men in the resort lounge secretly using international sign language. After they return to their rooms they find Roby missing. Mixed up in some nefarious goings-on the two are unsure how to proceed, do they call the police and risk Roby's safety? And what about the film that shows the crime, what good can it do if they are unable to get it developed. While discussing their next move Jim tells Kim that he'll need her to be his ears which makes Kim realize Jim is also deaf.
After seeing sign language being used again in the lounge, the two learn of a secret meeting being held in the garret of the resort. Kim and Jim climb up to the garret balcony and witness the secret meeting. The men inside use sign language so as to not be overheard and Jim translates it to Kim; the men are drug smugglers, the man killed on the slopes was an Interpol agent, and Roby was kidnapped and placed in an isolated cabin up on the mountain cause the gang believed he found out too much.
Kim and Jim decided to head up the mountain to rescue Roby but as they are sneaking supplies from the ski room one of the gang members shows up. It is the man who Kim captured on film causing the fatal accident. He tells them that he is looking to run out on the gang and will take them to Roby if they can secure half a million dollars in jewels from Roby's father. Having no other option they agree. Kim and Jim go to Jean Paul's home where they secure the jewels from his wife but are falsely accused of being the ones behind Roby's kidnapping.
They make the dangerous trip up the mountain which includes skiing sideways across a headwall that has a worrying amount of snow overhead. Once at the cabin they find Roby and spend the night there waiting for him to warm up enough to be able to safely make their decent.
The next morning they get back to the headwall when the criminal tells them that this is where they part ways. He instructs them to head back across the headwall and that he will climb up the mountain and descend on the other side. However once he is farther up the mountain Kim sees him with a gun. He is going to wait until they are crossing the headwall then shoot the gun to cause an avalanche, killing the three. When they don't begin to cross the headwall he points the gun at them, leaving them no option but to try and outrun the avalanche.
Jim is the only one who outruns it. Kim and Roby are buried alive but dug out by Jim. Soon they are rescued by patrol men checking the area. Once safe the three head to the police station to report everything but there they are instantly arrested for murder, kidnapping, and drug smuggling. The head of the gang is also their impersonating the Interpol agent that was murdered.
They are all taken to Jean Paul's house where Kim outwits the gang leader, Roby tells his story, and Jean Paul accepts Roby as his son.
- Religion is weirdly shoved into this text, it doesn't feel natural at all. The only natural inclusion was when Jean Paul and his wife give Kim and Jim a sleigh ride home and stop at a sermon which has a special meaning since it was the first one since the murder which hung heavy over everyone at the resort.
However Kim and Roby "making peace" with God while trapped in the avalanche, Kim getting offended anytime Jim uses an expression with "god" in it, Kim saying her wedding would be "in a church, of course", and Jean Paul insisting Roby be raised Catholic even though he refuses to accept him as his child and tells everyone he has no children were all awkwardly forced into the text. The last book didn't do this so I'm not sure why this one was so focused on Kim being a believer.
- I'm not sure the author was really aware of what sign language looks like because in the scenes where the men are secretly using sign language in the lounge it is described more like morse code. A man is tapping his fingers on a book he is reading and another man replies by tapping his fingers on the fireplace mantel. If you've seen sign language you know that's just not accurate.
- After they arrive at the cabin to rescue Roby they eat and have some wine with the wine causing Kim to fall asleep. I thought this must mean Kim is at least 21 but then I looked at the year this book was published. It was during the time the majority of the U.S. had lowered the drinking age to 18. Alas, we still don't know Kim's age. Also, they give Roby some wine to help warm him up and it puts him to sleep. Definitely something you wouldn't find in a kid's book today.
- I did not think Roby going to his father at the end was a good choice. If that was suppose to be a happy ending then why did the author make Jean Paul so irredeemably unlikeable throughout the book. Jim has raised Roby to be a good, kind boy and Jean Paul is a terrible person who is probably going to undo all of that. Jean Paul also calls Roby "defective" so I doubt he will be patient when it comes to Roby's deafness. The real happy ending would be Jim adopting him.
Overall this was another good book in the Kim Aldrich series.
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