Under the weight of colliding cultures, a young chicano named Adam Duane agonizes over the mystery of his brother's death. Was it murder, or was it the self-inflicted resolution to a life baffled by a secret that Adam helped to keep until the time came to use it as a weapon against Cal, his brother? Descending to the darker fringe where the worst of the Americano and the Mexicano meet, Adam now faces self-doubt and a greater riddle: Is he his brother's keeper, or is he using him as an excuse to let himself free-fall even further into amorality and self-corruption? Far removed from the sun-drenched sandlot of his childhood, Adam feels himself an exile from the things that once gave meaning to his life, marooned by winter in a land that once was Paradise."