Dr. Dooley McSweeny and his wife, Claudia, dearly love the son they adopted from Russia four years ago. But when medical tests indicate that their little boy could not possibly have come from Russia, the couple is plunged into the dark, complex and emotionally fraught world of international adoption.

Who is their son? Where did he come from? How did he come to them? The answers to these questions threaten to destroy their marriage, their happiness-and their lives-as they explode a powder keg of betrayal and deceit.