It began on a warm autumn night in the French villa where John Charles, an author of "acknowledged distinction," lives a life of comfort and reflection. Suddenly the sound of a gunshot rends the thick air, and a bullet barely misses him. Soon John's house has been burned to the ground, and another man, dressed almost identically to John, is shot.Why does someone want to kill John Charles? Leaving behind the French countryside, the man of thought and erudition, a man who indulges his body's desires and his mind's flights of fancy, sets off across Europe's postmodern landscape, reexamining his past, his marriage, and the relationships he has scattered across the continent. But John cannot guess that he is running straight into a trap. When his shadowy enemies take him captive, the pieces will begin to come together.Held prisoner by three people who were much closer to him than he knew, he is forced to look back: at a young English soldier and an innocent German girl running naked through the moonlight ... at a lifetime of partings and reunions ... at a world ripped apart by war and violently pulled together again. Read Less