After a lifetime of kindly taking care of his irresistible but impossible sister and her wonderful daughter, Tom is finally ready to put himself first. An architect, he finally has an opportunity to build his masterpiece with a new client. Assuming, that is, his rich, fickle client―the last woman he slept with before coming out―doesn’t follow through on her threats to mess it up. Naturally, that’s when his phone rings. His niece, Cecily (the...

In an alternative 2011, the Mental Parity movement takes hold. Americans now embrace the sacred, universal truth that there is no such thing as variable human intelligence. Because everyone is equally smart, discrimination against purportedly dumb people is 'the last great civil rights fight.' Tests, grades, and employment qualifications are all discarded. Children are expelled for saying the S-word ("stupid") and encouraged to report parents who...

On March 17, 2010--Saint Patrick's Day--fifty-seven people at Lothrup college are killed in a campus shooting, many of them because they did not receive the college's active-shooter alert in time. When Professor William Kessler, the shooting's reluctant hero, discovers that Lothrup botched the alert and is now engaged in a cover-up, his first impulse is to come forward. But if he does, there will be grievous consequences for everyone around him, and...