Once a promising actor, Tim Brettigan has gone missing. His father thinks he may have seen him among some homeless people. And though she knows he left on purpose, his mother has been searching for him all over their home city of Minneapolis. She checks the usual places --- churches, storefronts, benches --- and stumbles upon a local community group with lofty goals and an enigmatic leader. Christina, a young woman rapidly becoming addicted to a boutique drug that gives her a feeling of blessedness, is inexplicably drawn to the same collective by a man who’s convinced he may start a revolution.

THERE’S SOMETHING I WANT YOU TO DO is a collection of 10 interrelated stories, the first five named after virtues, the second after vices. Charles Baxter’s point is that all of us cover the spectrum of moral qualities, as do his characters --- from the pediatrician conflicted about his work to the altruistic missionary who contracts a disease in Ethiopia and, upon returning stateside, commits robbery to pay for medicine. In Baxter’s world, as in life, decisions are rarely easy.