Amanda Malcom, on the run from her estranged husband and the Boston police, has stood by her friend and lover Jeb Thomas through some challenging times. But their arrangement grows increasingly strained as they head west. When they reach the rugged copper mines of Montana, she comes face to face with prejudice, violence and decadence. It quickly sinks in that she may have made a terrible choice.In Boston, aging Confederate soldier Devlin Richards has fallen into a pattern of petty crime and subtle revenge against the people he blames for the downfall of his once great family. But when he takes on a beautiful new partner, the success of his operation starts to grow.Meanwhile, a reclusive scientist who survived deadly shipwreck is growing strong again and starting to rejoin the world. But his new life of drugs, obsessive work and occasional brawling threatens to undue his progress.This fourth book of the sprawling Puzzle Box Chronicles is a cross-country journey of fear and hope set in the early 1890s. Electrical and telephone wires are bringing young America closer together. But other forces seem determined to pull things apart, leaving the world empty and desolate.