Boston, 1982. P.I. Andy Roark has spent the past decade trying to fit back into the world. In Vietnam, there was order and purpose. Everything--no matter how brutal--happened for a reason. Now, after brief stints in college and with the police force, it's enough for him to take on the occasional divorce or insurance fraud case.

Roark's childhood friend, Danny Sullivan, dragged himself out of the Southie gutter to become a respected and powerful lawyer. Now he wants Roark to help one of his clients find her missing father. The case takes Roark to the beaches of Nantucket, where Roark's finely-honed senses alert him to danger just below the island's picturesque surface--where the biggest case of Roark's career may just shatter what little peace of mind he has left . . .