An undertow of danger and deception threatens a professor's search for the truth—and his life—in this gripping New England academic mystery.

MIT Professor Bill Rundle discovers the body of his graduate assistant Justin Marsh floating in the Charles River. Accident? Suicide? The fact that the corpse is missing an eye suggests something much more sinister . . .

But now, somehow and from somewhere, a computer belonging to Justin has come to life to send Bill a posthumous email. Attached are over six thousand lines of what looks like jumbled code—or is it? Under suspicion himself for Justin's murder, and despite multiple threats, Rundle sets out to uncover the real killer, and to find out why those six thousand lines of seeming gibberish may have cost Justin his life . . .
Helped by a colleague, Rundle learns it's a program for piloting an America's Cup yacht. Suspects linked to a racing team include a Russian Mafioso, an aggressive Japanese millionaire, a Boston-based entrepreneur, even the head of Rundle's own lab. When another colleague is found dead, Rundle deciphers a complex clue that leads him to a deadly climactic encounter.