In an America broken by a "limited" nuclear war, no one has use for would-be private eye Wally Sands. No one except for Dr. Charles Winfield, an eccentric scientist who believes he was cloned from a prominent biochemist as part of a top-secret project undertaken before the war.

Sands sets out to find Winfield's mysterious progenitor, but finds himself on the trail of a killer instead.

Now, in far-away, fabled England, Sands must uncover the facts about the case that has brought him to his promised land, and at the same time confront the unsettling truth about his world, his life, and his loyalties.