The plot centres on Bobby Zha, a Sergeant at the fictional SFPD Chinatown station in San Francisco.

The claimed shooting of a burglar by eleven-year-old Natalie Persikov conflicts with Zha's intuition on the matter, but before he has a real chance to investigate he is shot himself.

The doctors tell him he's in New York, not San Francisco; he was never shot; and that he's Robert Van Berg, sole survivor of a car crash that killed both his parents and put him into a coma since he was seven.

[2] Now adult and sole inheritor of his family's considerable fortune, Bobby wastes no time in getting back to the West Coast to investigate.

[3] In between looking into the case of his own murder, finding out what really happened at the Persikov's house and following up the leads from his contacts among the homeless of San Francisco, Bobby becomes increasingly concerned over his own identity.