Jonathan Wise also known as Tommy Lowell lives in Baja, California, where he fled after a conviction for manslaughter and sentencing to eight years in prison. Only eighteen when he was convicted, he lives in fear of discovery every day of the new life he is trying to make for himself.Baja is a very poor country, and in its interior most of the residents speak only Spanish with which Jonathan has only a rudimentary acquaintance. Although Jonathan’s girlfriend left with him, her allegiance was more to her drug addiction than it was to Jonathan, and loneliness plagues him as well as homesickness for his parents, siblings and the upper-middle class life he had led.With luck and friends drawn by the courteous and polite young man as well as his own determination, Jonathan not only survives, but creates a pleasant life–pleasant but still shadowed by the fear of discovery.