Dan Golden is a graduate student trying to explain variations in urban mortality rates. In the process of finishing what he thought was going to be two or three days of routine research, he stumbles into a network of local intrigue and corruption. But the more important story involves Dan's personal odyssey. His work leads him to a series of intriguing individuals who change his thinking on life and death. What began as a fairly routine graduate thesis ends up changing lives in ways that seemed unpredictable but, as the story unfolds, take on the characteristic of inevitability.