: Her mother’s battle with cancer and her husband's dangerous work abroad.
: Two young girls have gone missing in Castle Rock.
: Dealing with a volatile president and international threats in Timor.
In the second installment of the trilogy, Gwendy Peterson is no longer the bullied twelve-year-old running Suicide Stairs; she is a thirty-seven-year-old congresswoman and successful novelist. Chizmar uses her elevated status to ask a central question: is her success a result of her own merit, or is it a "charmed" life granted by the Button Box?. This creates a psychological tension where Gwendy’s greatest enemy is her own self-doubt.