Kit Carlyle, newly minted professor at the University of California at Berkeley, wakes up on the banks of a creek in the middle of the Costa Rican rainforest. It's pitch dark and he's bleeding from a wound on his head where someone hit him after he left the Culebra Bar in Tortuguero. As he comes to his senses, he realizes this is the second attempt to kill him. But by whom? And why? Kit struggles to his feet and embarks on a journey that takes him...