When Ali McCain, an 18-year-old from Los Angeles, is accepted at Oxford, it’s a chance to fulfill his dreams. To study English literature in England; to meet true intellectuals; and to glimpse the life he might have lived had his father --- British rock star Gel McCain, legendary frontman of the Pale Fires --- not abandoned him and his mother when he was a toddler. But not long after he arrives at the storied campus, Ali is drawn into a dark, disorienting world where events grow more and more curious by the day. Trading on his father’s name, he gains entry into one of Oxford’s oldest and most selective secret societies, the Saracens. As he immerses himself in this rarefied world, he inadvertently sets in motion a series of events that might culminate in disaster.

The year is 1982. The setting: an Edenic hamlet some 90 miles north of New York City. There, among the craggy rock cliffs and glacial ponds of timeworn mountains, three friends --- Patrick, Matthew and Hannah --- are bound together by a terrible and seemingly senseless crime. Twenty-six years later, in New York City, living lives their younger selves never could have predicted, the three meet again --- with even more devastating results.

It was only ever meant to be a game played by six best friends in their first year at Oxford University --- a game of consequences, silly forfeits and childish dares. But then the game changed: The stakes grew higher and the dares more personal and humiliating, finally evolving into a vicious struggle with unpredictable and tragic results. Now, 14 years later, the remaining players must meet again for the final round. Who knows better than your best friends what would break you?