This darkly comic and highly original novel is set over two weeks in 2004, where we find protagonist Dr. Mark Chopra, a chaste and passive neurologist. One evening Mark is summoned to help his intriguing friend Ian, whose girlfriend Laura has simply vanished. When we learn of the images of Laura that play in the film-roll of Mark's mind, we realize that this disappearance has bigger consequences than initially meets the eye. Always more ready to read than to act, Mark draws on the lessons of the great philosophers and generals as both men settle in to the comfort of a drink as they try to figure out what it all might mean.