Tommy Phan is a thirty-year-old Vietnamese-American detective novelist living in Southern California, and a chaser of the American Dream. He drives home his brand-new Corvette one day to discover a strange doll on his doorstep. It's rather like a rag doll, but is covered entirely with white cloth, having no face or hair or clothes, little more than a doll blank. Where the eyes should be, there are two crossed stitches of black thread. Five sets of crossed black stitches mark the mouth, and another pair form an X over the heart.