Dr. Leonard Barnes, a prominent Irvine surgeon, is the part-time medical examiner for the Laguna Beach PD. A gentle but formal man, his naked, comatose body is found beside the freeway near San Juan Capistrano. His coma has been brought on by alcohol poisoning; Len Barnes is a teetotaler.

Len's friend and new love, Dr. Sally Cornell, is a UCSD forensic anthropologist. She knows that Len has been poisoned but neither she nor Lieutenant Tom Deaton know why or by whom.

Tom's investigation takes him into Len's deep past and the actions of a man from that past, a man now entangled with terrorists. Because of the federal interest in the case, Tom teams with FBI Special Agent Gwen Harrison. The investigation takes them from California to Ohio to New York, Texas, Missouri and, ultimately, to London.

Poison Touch is both very public and deeply personal, an international thriller and a human study of the intimate relationships within the Deaton novels' ensemble cast.