Once a journalist, always a journalist. Until the Hezbollah get a hold of you and show you just what a coward you are.

Phillip McGuire was already a burnt-out foreign correspondent before the Hezbollah kidnapped him in Beirut and, under torture by exposing the nerves of his hand, got him to give the layout of the Marine compound he had visited. They blow it up, killing those 237 soldiers. Then why release Phillip, whose psyche is now blown to smithereens with guilt?

The hand gets repaired. Phillip quits journalism and returns to his college town to buy and run a bar and try to repair his psyche. A brash Hispanic journalism student teaches him to love again and she starts his healing process. But local drug plots and the young journalist's prying bring him full cycle right back to the hands of the Hezbollah.

But this time he just might be able to sort out all the double-crosses.

First in a series novels about Phillip McGuire. His years as a foreign correspondent provide the experience - and college professors provide the knowledge - to solve various mysteries brought to him in his bar.