Meet Rake Stafford: From 9 to 5 he’s a VA counselor focusing on Viet Vets. In the evening he runs a struggling one-man P.I. agency. He is grizzled, overweight, and loves his wife—and is the most unusual and endearing protagonist you’ll ever meet between the pages of a thriller.

To preempt a national threat, the FBI’s Counter-Terrorism Division must eliminate a number of key individuals. It’s critical though that these deaths appear natural. To achieve this, CTD approaches Gideon Mayfair, founder of Science Applications Corp, a stealth defense contractor specializing in the marriage of science and security.

Using animals in a maze, SAC’s researchers harness stress as an assassin’s tool. Now their urgent need is to test the process on a man. With CTD complicity, a random target is chosen: His name is Ted Deacon. He is also Rake Stafford’s brother-in-law.

From New York City to a palace in Turkey, from small town Vermont to the dark island of Mindanao, Ted Deacon is a man in a maze. Personally. Professionally. Sexually. Intuitively. SAC targets every facet of Ted’s life, while Rake, in a race to save his brother-in-law, battles a force he does not even know exists.