In order to hook up with his new California girlfriend, a Harvard graduate involves her in an ill-fated plan to smuggle a suitcase full of marijuana bricks from Berkeley to Boston.

[1] Crichton said the novel was "interesting to me because it attacks what is to most people a puzzling area.

What really happens to nice, middle-class, well-educated, suburban, bright kids who get into drugs?

"[2] The critic from the Los Angeles Times called it an "unremarkable tale" with a "paucity of plot" but thought the ending was "exciting".

Barbara Hershey appears in the role of Susan, the novice drug-courier who loses the bag of bricks on a cross-country flight from Berkeley to Boston.