Deep powder, dead poets and moral free-fall in the death-sport capital of the world. Long-dead Lord Byron started it. He was the rock star of his age, but also a poet with about as much relevance to the blood grudge struggle that marks modern life for most of humanity as he has to the practice of sliding down snowy slopes on planks of wood. And yet, it was thanks to Byron that Itchy ended up living in Chamonix Mont Blanc, the death-sport capital of the world, among the high mountains and low morals.<BR>In the intervening years, he has tried hard with alcohol and adrenaline to numb a past he can't atone for. Now a serial rapist is stalking Cham's tourist-thronged streets, haunting the same shadows as Itchy and triggering an obsession which will lead him far from Europe's zenith, to the depths of the valley and himself.