A cryptic message left in a California bookstore sends Jordan Dunleavy on a world-wide quest to uncover riddles of his past and just possibly to save his family.  His travels lead from the banks of the Seine to the peaks of the Alps as he seeks answers to long-sealed secrets.  Each step of his journey jogs his memory as he reflects on torrid love affairs, painful heartbreaks, lost loved ones, and career challenges.  Until he realizes the central fact of his life — that there are no coincidences. The rest of what he learns will surprise you.

During the long flight to Paris, Jordan  is reminded of his life forty years earlier, when he experienced Paris to its fullest as a graduate student and fell in love.  The story recounts his love affairs and his loss of loved ones.  Yet, at each point Jordan feels he is being protected and directed by an unknown force.

Jordan’s friends include the iconoclastic and peripatetic Russell Ritter, who is both handsome and incorrigible.  His other friends, Paul and Cynthia have mysterious pasts but share a common love for 60s rock music.  That is until three of their idols die at the coincidental age of 27.

Coincidences and conspiracies abound in this novel — from the death of presidents, to experiments with LSD, to radiation in the Utah desert, to the Tuskegee syphilis experiments.   On this picaresque journey we learn of the origins of Lyme disease, Operation Paperclip and MK Ultra.  The characters come face to face with many of the newsmakers of the 60s and 70s, including Ken Kesey, the Unabomber, Janis Joplin, Jack Kerouac, and many more.