As the Morning Rose ploughs through wintry Arctic seas toward Bear Island, ship's doctor Christopher Marlowe is kept busy attending to the seasick passengers, a film unit being sent to make a film so secret that none of them knows much about it. As passengers and crew begin dying, he realizes that the Morning Rose has a murderer on board. Once on the island, Marlowe must contend against weather, terrain, and ruthless adversaries as events build to a brutal climax in the darkness of the Polar night.