. Winston Sage, MD, an epidemiologist, and his wife Julia move to New Mexico for a peaceful retirement in picturesque, artsy Santa Fe. To make small talk at a welcoming party, Sage brags about his skills in tracing people. A neighbor hears about this and asks Sage to help find his wife who has disappeared mysteriously. Sage, a medical detective who always wanted to play a real detective, gets involved and opens a Pandora’s box of life-changing escapades. Sage is obsessed with trying to find the missing wife. She owns a gallery on Canyon Road and has struck it rich as a dealer in Asian antiques. He discovers that she recently developed expertise in ancient Chinese ceramics of the Warring States Era (475-221 BCE) under the tutelage of a high-ranking, Chinese-American, nuclear scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratories. Sage persists in asking nagging questions of the missing woman’s husband, her mentor, and other gallery owners. The FBI warns him to stay away from the nuclear scientist, a top security figure. An attempt is made on Sage’s life and the FBI then takes him into protective custody, turning his life upside-down. In a surprise ending, Sage helps to uncover the long sought-after Los Alamos mole. "In this unique, unpredictable and fun mystery, Grufferman brings his in-depth knowledge of Chinese antiquities to a rollicking high-stakes missing person case, solved by a retired epidemiologist who never meant to be a sleuth but turns into a damn good one. It's a damn good novel too, sure to appeal to fans of the armchair detective genre although this guy never gets much time to sit around!" --Malena Watrous, author of If You Follow Me and Sparked "In Grufferman's debut, the measured pace sets the tone, especially since his lead, an amateur detective, learns as he goes along. Even Win admits he's only lucked into certain revelations, but he wisely seeks others' assistance, from a local retired surgeon to friends in Hong Kong." "Win's sleuthing is unrefined, but his modesty adds appeal to both the character and this quiet mystery." --Kirkus Reviews Seymour Grufferman, MD, DrPH, is an epidemiologist who began his medical career as a pediatrician and went on to obtain three degrees in epidemiology from Harvard. After serving in the Air Force in Japan during the Vietnam War, he taught at the Gondar Public Health College in Ethiopia. He returned to the US for further training and spent the rest of his career in academic medicine, teaching and doing research at Duke University, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of New Mexico Schools of Medicine. His research was on cancer clusters and the causes of childhood and hematologic cancers. He is retired and enjoys living with his wife and dog in the hills outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is the first novel in a Winston Sage trilogy.