This novel is based on the experience of American explorer John Frémont and his attempt to find a railway route to the West along the 38th parallel, when he becomes trapped in the snowbound Colorado mountains and must fight his way out.

"Steve Inskeep tells the riveting story of John and Jessie Frémont, the husband and wife team who in the 1800s were instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States, and thus became America's first great political couple. John Frémont grew up amid family tragedy and shame. Born out of wedlock in 1813, he went to work at age thirteen to help support his family in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a nobody. Yet, by the 1840s, he rose...