Is Allison Shafer dead or alive? Finding the answer may be the only thing that will save John Standard's life. Standard is a freelance writer who believed he had chronicled the last days of a beautiful woman dying of cancer and determined to end her life using a physician-assisted suicide law. But did she really die? Standard believes she did. Shafer's gangster boyfriend isn't so sure and thinks Standard may be in on the hoax. The search for the truth takes Standard back to when he first met Shafer and eventually halfway around the world ... chasing the dead.