A small-town doctor copes with an escalating medical mystery in this thriller by a "superlative storyteller" (Publishers Weekly). Lee Madrigal became a doctor in spite of his difficult working-class upbringing, with a mother who died young and a father who fell under the spell of alcohol. Now Lee serves his neighbors in the California community where he grew up, and has reunited with his high school sweetheart. But the medical cases he's been handling lately have been bothering him: a baby born with inexplicable birth defects; a young man with symptoms that seem to mimic a venereal disease but whose blood tests come back clean. As the mystery mounts, Lee will discover a terrible secret about his hometown, and a battle to save lives will ensue . . .