Dana Halter is an American woman in her early thirties who at the age of four suffered an infection which left her profoundly deaf.

Since then, she has been able to master her life astonishingly well: she has acquired an academic degree and teaches at a school for the deaf in San Roque, likely analogous to Santa Barbara, California.

Her boyfriend, Bridger Martin, is a "hearie," a man a few years younger than herself who creates special effects for the film industry.

After Dana Halter is put in jail on a charge perpetrated by Wilson in her name, she and Bridger Martin are irate.

They decide to track down the identity thief, and a cross-country chase ensues that ends in Peterskill, New York.