The two halves of his world are about to collide...

Captain Charles Ellandun lives in two worlds. With NATO's Rapid Response team, he rescues embassies in trouble and takes drinking water to remote villages shattered by earthquakes.

Between assignments, he stays with his Aunt Edith in Boston, where she sponsors art shows at the local gallery. It's all very civilized and satisfying, with occasional bursts of mayhem and violence as seasoning. Best yet, he need never deal with his family, his perfect brother, his distant, demanding, disappointed father.

But then the war savages his unit — and him. It implants a ferocious, repeating memory that he can't shake.

Then someone murders Aunt Edith. And then someone tries to run him over with a Suburban. Unless he wants to be the next one dead, he must figure out why she is. Like it or not, Charles must dig into her past and haul it into his present.

Even if it rips his carefully cultivated world to shrapnel.

Even if it costs him his life.