Mordray is desperate to clear his family name. Just prior to World War II, his father ignored a British government directive by attending a marine biology conference sponsored by the Nazi government.

Geoffrey Cooper, to the chagrin of his father, has become one of the island's chief bon vivants. It is the pursuit of women who occupy most of young Cooper's waking moments.

Both men will be affected by a startling event in 1968 that will imbue their fates along with a number of other islanders, shaking them to their very cores.

"Finely crafted ... a page turn -- K. Satter."