When two 18-year-old girls go missing in Thailand, their families are thrust into the international spotlight: desperate, bereft and frantic with worry. What were the girls up to before they disappeared? Journalist Kate Waters always does everything she can to be first to the story, first with the exclusive, first to discover the truth --- and this time is no exception. But she can’t help but think of her own son, whom she hasn’t seen in two years, since he left home to go travelling. As the case of the missing girls unfolds, they all will find that even this far away, danger can lie closer to home than you might think.

It’s the fall of 1979 in New York City when 23-year-old Anton Winter, back from the Peace Corps and on the mend from a nasty bout of malaria, returns to his childhood home in the Dakota. His father, the famous late-night host Buddy Winter, is there to greet him, himself recovering from a breakdown. Before long, Anton is swept up in an effort to reignite Buddy’s stalled career. But the more he finds himself enmeshed in his father’s professional and spiritual reinvention, the more Anton questions his own path, and fissures in the Winter family begin to threaten their close bond.