Maurizio Belli and Fulvio Giovannini set themselves a challenge : skiing over the Alaska during the winter. First, they wanted to cross from Fort Yukon to Anchorage for a 1300 kilometers journey. But they will quickly endure unexpected weather conditions. High temperatures, due to global warming, melt snow and permafrost, making their progression more and more difficult.

While on a ship to Skagway, Alaska, Duke and Chester find a map to a secret gold mine, which had been 'stolen' by thugs. In Alaska to recover her father's map, Sal Van Hoyden falls in with Ace Larson, who secretly wants to steal the gold mine for himself. Duke, Chester, the thugs, Ace and his henchman chase each other all over the countryside—for the map.

Penelope Keeling, a sixty-four-year-old daughter of a famous artist, reflects on her life, and the fate and choices that defined it, when she arrives in the Mediterranean to stay with her headstrong daughter. Shifting through time, and falling into place like the pieces of a jigsaw, the truth of Penelope's rich, heartbreaking and surprising life unfolds.