When Chet the dog, "the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction" ( Boston Globe), and his human partner, PI Bernie Little, are approached by a down-and-out older man with a cardboard sign at an exit ramp, Bernie is shocked to discover the man is a former teammate from his high school baseball team. Chet and Bernie take Rocket out for a good meal, during the course of which Rocket refers to their class's prom queen, who supposedly vanished in a mysterious way. Bernie can't get the story off his mind, and goes back to his old high school, where much that he remembers turns out not to be true. Did the prom queen marry the captain of the football team, move to Hawaii, and later join some sort of commune in Kauai? The former football captain, now running a mining company in the desert searching for rare earth minerals of import to national security, is not helpful--and there are powerful and dangerous people not happy with the questions Bernie is asking. Bernie soon learns that he misunderstood much about his high school years--and now, plunged into a dangerous case, Chet and Bernie discover what can happen when national security interests are thought to be at risk.