A boy lies in a coma in Utah, brought home from Israel after a near-death motorcycle accident. A child who escaped certain death in Poland in 1941 swims with manatees in If you look hard enough into the history of anything, you will discover certain things that seem to be connected but that are not. So claims a character in Frederick Reiken's wonderful, surprising new novel, which seems in fact determined to prove the opposite. How else to explain the threads that link a middle-aged woman of vacation in Florida with an elusive Sixties-era fugitive, as well as a dozen or so other characters whose lives seem to be mysteriously intertwined? As the story travels from Florida to Salt Lake City to the Caribbean to the Dead Sea, this wondrous, exquisitely crafted novel glides effortlessly across time and space, reaching forward and back and building toward unexpected moments of revelation.