Man of Bone has the power of a thriller, but Alan Cumyn delivers something more: a complex portrait of an ordinary man jerked into the horrors of terrorism. Bill Burridge, his wife, and their son move to the "island paradise" of Santa Irene on Bill's first posting as a Canadian diplomat. At the short-staffed embassy, he struggles with work he scarcely understands. Ten days later, driving alone on a supposedly safe highway, he is kidnapped by revolutionaries. Burridge's ignorance and low status make him useless to his captors, but they can't simply let him go. His body broken by relentless torture, Burridge determines to keep his spirit whole by concentrating on his childhood and his life with his wife and his little boy. Eventually, distracted by other battles, the kidnappers abandon Burridge and his keeper in a mountain village. A sudden, violent rescue throws Burridge back into his own world, but he and his beloved family discover that "living happily ever after" will be more complex than they could have imagined.