Tras una obra de [[suspense]], el autor trata tams con contenido cultural, en particular la curiosa historia [[Poscolonialismo|poscolonial]] de [[Dinamarca]], así como la naturaleza de la relación con los individuos y sociedades son los que tienen que interactuar las culturas sometidas. La historia personal de la protagonista, Smilla Qaaviqaaq Jaspersen, es un buen reflejo de ese elemento, pues es hija de una [[inuit]] groenlandesa y de un adinerado médico danés.
Smilla'sLa relationshiprelación withde DenmarkSmila andcon Danish[[Dinamarca]] society,y havingsu beensociedad broughtes intensa childhoody fromambivalente, theentre povertyotras andrazones freedomdebido ofa Greenlandque topasó thesu affluentinfancia anden highlyla orderedmuy societylibre ofy Denmarkpobre [[Groenlandia]], isy ahora vive en medio del órden strainedy andla ambivalentriqueza. Smilla investigates the death of a neighbor’s child whom she had befriended—a fellow Greenlander, with an alcoholic, neglectful mother and a mysteriously deceased father. The story begins in [[Copenhagen]], where the child has fallen to his death from their apartment building's snowy rooftop. The police refuse to consider it anything but an accident—there is only one set of footprints (the child's) in the snow leading to the edge of the roof—but Smilla believes there is something about the footprints that shows that the boy was chased off the roof. Her investigations lead her to decades-old conspiracies in Copenhagen, and then to a voyage on an icebreaker ship to a remote island off the Greenlandic coast, where the truth is finally discovered. But the book ends unresolved, with no firm conclusion.
