This novel is set in an era on the brink of a rapidly changing world. The reader joins the lives of Roy and Pearl Held, who are enjoying good times produced by the abundant Roaring Twenties in their prosperous northern Indiana hometown, Scott City. The couple's twin five-year-olds and new lake house are a joy, and the summer of 1926 seems to be a bucolic paradise. Roy hopes to become vice president of the local bank, and Pearl intends to use her journalism experience to publish a magazine. But despite the seemingly endless economic success and social freedom of the '20s, sinister forces gather to darken the post-World War I landscape. Soon, threatening local and international violence shatters their safe world and throws them into unexpected adventure, danger, and a reunion with Roy's former army intelligence mates, Professor Egon Wolf and French secret service officer Charles Clisson. The story captures the 1920s era, compelling family life and love, the brutality of unreasonable hate, and international intrigue in Paris and Europe, guided by the mysterious presence of a Pottawatomie sage.