Zach prowls a midnight beach on the shores of Lake Michigan, nursing a secret longing. Meanwhile Jackson sits in Hollywood pounding out furious emails to the President of the United States. As thunderclouds gather over Los Angeles, across the country in Michigan the heat is becoming intense, driving the beach community of Union Pier indoors, seeking relief in air conditioning, dark bedrooms and cool sheets. Jackson’s anger snaps like the lightning over the Tinseltown neon skyline – fury at the war, fury at the fate his friends have suffered in a drowning New Orleans, most of all rage at one particular soldier fighting in Iraq for a cause he cannot understand…a soldier named Zach. Why won’t the White House listen? And in the heat-struck lakeside town Zach trawls his memories in a desperate attempt to reconnect with a man who changed his life for ever with one act of love.