Noelle is the daughter of Roger, a college professor and candidate for public office with adulterous tendencies, and Irene, once a very promising bright young woman, and still beautiful, but clearly broken by years of a domestic life with a cheating husband. — She becomes obsessed with her uncle, Danny Farrell, who has always been a black sheep of sorts in the family. Danny is believed to have died in an airplane flying over china while working for the CIA. Roger's mother, Brigid, is a powerful widow with a lot of dirty secrets. The family is an example of an Irish Catholic family's ascent into the upper middle class, perhaps even the upper class, after a few generations, reflecting a common theme of sociologist Greeley. However, aside from Danny, there have been other mysterious deaths in this family, and Noelle courageously probes this dark side of her ancestry, leading to the truth about who she really is.