Around a family dining table deep in the Heartland, where Senator Joe McCarthy once sat and discussed his fondness for beets, nothing is as it seems. Gunnar, the family patriarch, is an upstanding farmer - or is he? Why is his favorite daughter so anxious to flee to Chicago? And why does her mother want to go too? Daughter Charity, a devoted wife and mother, is clearly frightened of something. Her husband, Jerry, hates anything un-American, but refuses to serve in Korea. As the mysteries multiply, author Timothy Mason solves them with wit and unrelenting suspense.