If arrogance were means to power, the Irate Savant would rule the world. Instead he earns minimum wage in a Chicago antiquities gallery.
Desperate for a paycheck, he ignores his boss's black marketeering and constant scoldings for loafing and tardiness. But the Savant can't ignore the bizarre text messages that invade his cellphone. The antiquities that defy known archaeology. The frantic collector who storms into the gallery, babbling about strange inscriptions on artifacts, and the one-eyed excavator who threatens to reveal terrible secrets--both of whom disappear.
Home offers little comfort. The jerk in the apartment below torments him at every turn. His budding relationship with a woman in his building is disrupted by her redneck former boyfriend. And her innocent questions about his past summon memories of a forbidden affair, the tragic consequences of which he's been running from for years.
Now he's being followed. A stunning woman in a nearby greasy spoon hints through cryptic riddles at possible answers. But do the answers lie in the gallery, or in his past?