Charlie Ravich is a survivor whose brutal experience as a POW in Vietnam has more than prepared him for the cutthroat world of global commerce. Now a wealthy Upper East Side executive in his late fifties, Charlie has only one problem: his family is dying out. His wife teeters on the edge of Alzheimer's; their son has succumbed to leukemia; and their daughter, Julia, is unable to bear a child. Charlie is being trumped by time. Enter Christina, a beguiling Columbia University dropout -- intelligent, selectively dishonest, tilted with desire. Her affair with Rick Bocca, a member of a big-time truck-theft ring run by mobster Tony V., has landed her in prison. After four years in Bedford Hills, she is suddenly released by the Manhattan D.A's office -- perhaps because she is innocent, perhaps not. Warned by a detective that Christina is being set up by Tony V., Rick begins a desperate, bungled search to warn Christina, who has lied her way into the high-flying world of Charlie Ravich. But her past catches up with her, and Rick's catches up with him, setting off a harrowing chain of betrayals that leaves only one person with any hope of a future.