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.

A young Mexican American from East LA journeys south to Texas to find his father and on the road becomes involved in a great intrigue involving serial murder, including an attempt on his own life that erases all memory of his existence up to the moment of impact. After more than a quarter of a century of living as a stranger even to himself, and now a second attempt on his life, he is forced to try to find those responsible when his children become at risk, and he faces incredible odds that he fears are the demons from his former life that have arisen and come back to haunt him, and to finish the job they started once upon a time.