Scholar Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a composing task for an British class. His task is normally to interview a stranger and write a short biography of the individual. With deadlines looming, Joe minds to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he matches Carl Iverson, and soon nothing at all in Joe’s life can be ever the same.

Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran-and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home after spending thirty years in prison for the offences of rape and murder.

While Joe writes about Carl’s existence, especially Carl’s valor in Vietnam, he cannot reconcile the heroism from the soldier using the despicable acts from the convict. Aided by his skeptical neighbor, Lila, Joe throws himself into uncovering the reality. Thread by thread, he begins to unravel the tapestry of Carl’s conviction. But as he and Lila dig deeper in to the circumstances from the crime, the stakes develop higher. Will Joe discover the truth before it’s too late to flee the fallout?