Illegally arrested and without hope of reprieve, unlikely terrorist Augustus Rose finds himself at the mercy of Harper, ruthless interrogator and ambassador for the darkest forces at work in our times. In the ordeal that brings his whole life under brutal scrutiny, Augustus has but one shield: memory. His is a past filled with talismanic women, but at its center is Selina, a stunning, rebellious white aristocrat with whom he shared an epic, taboo love. Their affair, begun in 1960s Manhattan, would yield a lifetime's worth of passion, heartbreak, and wanderlust, leading Augustus from Harlem to Greenwich Village, from El Salvador to Barcelona, from Morocco to a bleak Scottish island where death seems his only companion.