Immediately after returning from Naval service during World War Two, Commander Nick Parsons returns to the town of his birth in the Cascade Mountains to unravel a mystery - a mystery he doesn't know has tragically impacted upon four generations of his family. The story flows from his great grandfather (an engineer) who helped build Stampede Tunnel on the Northern Pacific Railway, through his grandfather (a Northern Pacific Divisional Master Mechanic), to his father (an NPR section maintenance foreman) who died in a tragic accident when Nick was young, on to Nick himself. As he slowly rakes through the still warm coals of the unexplained deaths of both of his parents just days apart, Nick's very existence is threatened more than once which just makes him more certain that his parents' deaths were anything but accidental. With it's foundations in a real event, the rest of the story is fictional and builds to a climax that fits neatly into the real facts of history. Real historical figures make true to character appearances.