Dean Allen returns from a year in Africa uncharacteristically traumatized. He has witnessed events and suffering that no background research could have prepared him for. Instead of finding the calm and security of home that he was hoping for he discovers that nothing is as he remembers it. When he is summoned to assist in solving what at first appear to be petty, mundane family issues he finds himself inexorably involved in intrigue, blackmail, infidelity and deception. In his effort to untangle himself by fleeing, he discovers that what he can't hope to escape are his own, long suppressed emotions. "