A converted fishing trawler, Morning Rose carries a movie-making crew across the Barents Sea to isolated Bear Island, well above the Arctic Circle, for some on-location filming, but the script is a secret known only to the producer and screenwriter.

En route, members of the movie crew and ship's company begin to die under mysterious circumstances.

Marlowe's efforts to unravel the plot become even more complicated once the movie crew is deposited ashore on Bear Island, beyond the reach of the law or outside help.

Bear Island was adapted to film in the 1979 movie directed by Don Sharp and starred Donald Sutherland, Richard Widmark, Vanessa Redgrave, and Christopher Lee.

Furthermore, the plot and characterization of the novel were greatly altered by the scriptwriters, to the point of changing the name of the protagonist from "Marlowe" to "Lansing".