Revenge is an act of passion. Vengeance is an act of justice.

Kári Solmundarson was a Norse Hebridean who lived at the turn of the tenth century. The people of his time knew the harshness of life, and met it with fierceness and determination—but they also knew love, loyalty, fairness, and honor.

When Kári befriends the four Njalsson brothers and travels to Iceland, he is unknowingly caught up in a web of lies, murder, and revenge that will ultimately bind their fates together. When disaster falls, Kári swears an oath to avenge what he's lost, one that will carry him through a decade of hardship in far away lands where he is a stranger. After that ten years, he is faced with an agonizing question: is justice actually to be had in this world? Or is the cost of seeking the truth too high for any man to pay?

Based upon the true events recounted in the Icelandic classic Njál's Saga—bestselling author Gordon Bonnet looks at how we tell good from evil, right from wrong, and the painful truth that the lines between them are often blurred and uncertain.