When the crotchety, book-loving retiree J.P. returns in 1999 to his hometown on the Gulf Coast after forty years abroad, determined to right the wrongs inflicted decades earlier by his younger brother, who usurped his place in the family firm, he fortuitously finds that his daughter, from whom he has been separated since her infancy, has taken a job at the nearby sea lab. In attempting to re-establish a relationship with her he recounts his own past life and her beginnings, including his study of classical literature, his long career in the foreign service, his courtship of her mother in 1970s Munich, and her mother's disappearance in Lebanon, as well as the reasons behind the father-daughter separation. The conflicts involved in his struggles to attain his goals of retribution and reconciliation force him to face up to his own role in each, and also to the societal norms of his native region and the parts of the world in which he has lived. His plans finally culminate in the spectacular hijacking of a Mardi Gras pageant, though the outcome is not what he expected. An absorbing plot, an unusual set of diverse characters, family conflicts, humorous touches, beautifully rendered scenes in different world settings throughout the latter half of the twentieth century develop and interrelate in intriguing ways to keep the reader continuously engaged.