When a convicted drug smuggler leaves prison after 22 years for one youthful mistake, he just wants to start over and obey the law. But, unable to find work, he s forced to take a supposedly legitimate job with his old crime partners. And they have big plans for their newest employee.

In July 1979, during the Summer holidays, in a house somewhere in Brittany, a whole family (parents, uncles, aunts, cousins and other relatives) are gathered to celebrate Granny Amandine s sixty-seventh birthday. Albertine, who was ten years old at the time, vividly recounts this brief but life-changing experience.

Phoenix cop Ben Shockley is well on his way to becoming a derelict when he is assigned to transport a witness named Gus Mally from Vegas. Mally turns out to be a belligerent prostitute with mob ties and incriminating information regarding a high-placed figure. Shockley s suspicions are aroused and the betting line against Mally testifying begins to climb when the transport vehicle is bombed and Mally s house is literally shot to pieces. The pair must face the truth about those they trust, as well as their own inner strengths, as they fight their way to Phoenix, finally using an armored bus to run a gauntlet of hundreds of police armed with high-powered weaponry.

A successful woman in love tries to break her family curse of every first marriage ending in divorce, by dashing to the alter with a random stranger before marrying her boyfriend.