The book opens with a murder of a bank examiner in Providence, R.I., in 1995 that intrigues the protagonist, and then cuts back to the summer of 1972, when five classmates from the University of Virginia class of 1972 spend a week after graduation at one of their grandmother's summer mansion in Newport, R.I. Charlie Sanderson, the protagonist, spends the entire summer at his best friend George Spaulding's home in Newport and falls in love with Julia Hoffman, born in Chile to a wealthy family now in exile in the United States because of Allende's shaky reign in Chile and the confiscation of much of their assets.The novel reverts to 1995, when the five friends are having one of their frequent reunions and the intrigue set off by the bank examiner's murder spins out of control and threatens two of the friends, remotely involved in the intrigue and at grave risk because of it. In hopes of rescuing them, Charlie pursuit of his friends takes him to Panama, the Caribbean, and beyond, as Charlie becomes not just the pursuer but the pursued. The chase is on.

An enthusiastic reader described the plot as "The Big Chill" becomes a Grisham thriller, and there's a griping love story as well.