After nearly fifteen years in a childless marriage, Michael Brace and his beautiful wife, Suzanne, live separate lives under the same roof. Suzanne suffers crippling headaches and is haunted by childhood memories of her father and the bloodlines of mental illness. Michael, meanwhile, sleeps on the couch, hiding in the shadows of his wealthy family and thinking about the novel he has always wanted to write. In a twisted desire for revenge against both her father and her husband, Suzanne sets in motion a patient, complicated plan of deception, sacrifice, and death which places her husband at the center of a brutal murder investigation. And when Michael becomes the prime suspect, he must turn to his family, his friends, and his neighbors — all of whom have lost faith in him long ago — to escape a lifelong sentence for a crime he did not commit. With spare prose and shrewd insight, Hollon explores the intertwined relationships of family and community in the face of an unthinkable crime, and illuminates the fine line between destruction and salvation.