In September of 1939 Gus Marais, youngest son of a French/American family, leaves college to enlist in the Canadian Army. He is motivated less by idealism and more by boredom with more schooling. In wartime England, Gus learns the meaning of duty and of love. At Dieppe, in 1942, he learns the violent and wasteful nature of war. Later, in the American Army, he participates in D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, which leave only disillusionment and pain in their wake. Ravaged by war, yet somehow alive to tell the tale, Gus' return to a normal life is hampered by the very skills that saved him-together with his gangland connections à la Angelo, mob kingpin, to whom Gus owed his life. So, with Angelo and his other post-war comrade-in-arms Otto, explosives expert extraordinaire, Gus finds himself committing murder and mayhem once again, this time in the world of the Detroit area's criminal element.Skills learned with the French resistance and with the Army in Sicily give the trio a head start in the gang wars of post-World War II Michigan, but Gus Marais despairs of living a life of crime. After twice failing to extricate himself from organized villainy, in a final symbolic gesture, he flings his gun into the middle of Lake St. Clair. But will his killing days be over? Will Gus Marais survive the ongoing homeland battles as he did so inexplicably-impossibly-the ones abroad?